Age- and gender-dependent D-amino acid oxidase activity in mouse brain and peripheral tissues: implication for aging and neurodegeneration

D-amino acid oxidase (DAO) is a flavoenzyme, catalysing oxidative deamination of D-amino acids to produce corresponding alpha-keto acids, ammonia and hydrogen peroxide. In our search for DAO activity among various tissues, we developed a sensitive assay based on hydrogen peroxide production involving enzyme-coupled colorimetric assay with peroxidase. We first optimized buffer components to extract DAO protein from mouse tissues. Here we show that DAO activity was detected in kidney, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, midbrain and spinal cord, but not in liver. In addition, we observed that DAO activity and expression were decreased in thoracic and lumbar regions of spinal cord in aged mice when compared with young mice, indicating that decreased DAO is involved in motoneuron degeneration during senescence. We also found gender difference in DAO activity in the kidney, suggesting that DAO activity is influenced by sexual dimorphism. We newly detected DAO activity in the epididymis, although undetected in testis. Furthermore, DAO activity was significantly higher in the caput region than corpus and cauda regions of epididymis, indicating that D-amino acids present in the testis are eliminated in epididymis. Taken together, age-and gender-dependent DAO activity in each organ may underlie the human pathophysiology regulated by D-amino acid metabolism.