A Rapid Method for Assaying Thiaminase I Activity in Diverse Biological Samples

Vitamin B-1 (thiamine) deficiencies can lead to neurological disorders, reproductive failure and death in wild and domestic animal populations. In some cases, disease is brought about by the consumption of foods high in thiaminase I activity. Levels of thiaminase activity in these foods are highly variable and the factors leading to production of this enzyme are poorly understood. Here we describe improvements in a spectrophotometric thiaminase I activity assay that measures the disappearance of 4-nitrothiophenol, a favored nucleophile co-substrate that replaces the thiazole portion of thiamine during the inactivation of thiamine by the enzyme. Scalable sample processing protocols and a 96-well microtiter plate format are presented that allow the rapid evaluation of multiple, replicated samples in the course of only a few hours. Observed levels of activity in bacterial culture supernatant, fish, ferns and molluscs using this colorimetric assay were similar to previously published reports that employed a radiometric method. Organisms devoid of thiaminase I, based upon previous work, showed no activity with this assay. In addition, activity was found in a variety of fishes and one fern species from which this enzyme had not previously been reported. Overall, we demonstrate the suitability of this technique for measuring thiaminase I activity within small amounts of tissue and environmental samples with replication levels that were heretofore prohibitive. The assay provides a considerable improvement in the ability to examine and understand the properties of an enzyme that has a substantial influence on organism and ecosystem health.