Active principle of swine prostate extract: I. Isolation of active principle activating prostatic acid phosphatase and its effect on testosterone uptake of the prostate in castrated rats.

There have been several reports concerning the therapeutic effect of an extract from animal prostates on benign prostatic hypertrophy. Previously, we reported that the swine prostate extract (PE) had the activity to enhance human prostatic acid phosphatase (PAPase) activity in vitro, and to increase the muscular tonicity of the urinary bladder by directly acting upon vesical muscles, suggesting that PE have an activity to elevate the intravesical voiding pressure in vivo. In the present study, it was attempted to isolate such an active principle of PE as activates human prostatic acid phosphatase (PAPase). The finally purified PE (PPE) was assessed as to some physico-chemical and pharmacological properties. 1) PPE was found to be a peptide with a molecular weight of about 8,800, composed largely of neutral amino acids (approximately 70%) and few of aromatic amino acids. 2) PPE activated PAPase in a dose-dependent fashion, resulting in an increase of the enzyme activity approximately twice in a dose of 2 X 10(-5) g/ml of PPE. Furthermore, PPE recovered PAPase activity dose-dependently from the 50% inhibition by 2 X 10(-3) M L-tartaric acid. 3) In castrated rats, the 3H-testosterone uptake of the prostate was significantly suppressed by the oral administration of PPE. PPE might be one of active principles of PE for the therapeutic effect on prostatic hypertrophy.