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The effect of perinatal anoxia on the subsequent amino acid pattern in the brain during a period of 2 wks after birth was investigated using neonatal rats. Sixty-nine neonatal albino rats of the Wistar strain were divided into 3 groups: the 1st control group (n = 36), the 2nd anoxic group (n = 30) and the 3rd anoxic-ischemic group (n = 3). In the 1st and 2nd groups, 6 rats out of each group were sacrificed on the each of the following days respectively, the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 10th and 15th days of life for amino acid assays of brain. In the 3rd group, 3 rats were sacrificed 2 days after ligation of the carotid artery on one side, and free amino acid levels in both cerebral hemispheres were separately measured. In the controls, the levels of GABA, Asp and Glu in the brain increased, those of Tau and Gly decreased and those of PE, Thr, Ser, Gln, Ala and Leu did not change during the experimental period. The total free amino acid level in the brain of the controls remained almost completely unchanged during this period. After anoxic exposure the levels of GABA, Tau, PE, Asp, Thr, Glu, Gln and Ala, and the total free amino acid level in the brain decreased until the 7th day of life and thereafter rapidly increased. The Gly level continuously decreased and the Ser and Leu levels did not change during the experiment. The GABA and Gly levels after anoxia decreased and were still low on the 15th day of life.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
The quality of dietary protein is an important factor influencing the growth performance of fish. To evaluate the quality of protein, the variables commonly studied are the composition of the essential amino acids, the digestibility and the protein use efficiency. The goal of the present experiment was to test the effect of the dietary non-essential amino acid composition on the growth of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). The fish were fed three purified diets differing only in their non-essential amino acid composition. The influence of the experimental diets on the growth performance, on the activity of enzymes involved in the amino acid metabolism, aspartate aminotransferase (ASAT) and alanine aminotransferase (ALAT), and on whole body delta(15)N values was investigated. Body mass, lipid, protein and energy gain differed significantly between the feeding groups. The activity of ASAT in the whole liver was significantly higher in fish with a positive protein balance compared to fish which lost protein. Whole body delta(15)N values of fish were negatively correlated with their body mass gain. Despite the poor utilisation of synthetic amino acids, the experiment indicates the importance of the dietary non-essential amino acid composition for the growth performance of fish. The study reveals the possibility to trace the utilisation of synthetic amino acids by determining the isotopic composition of dietary amino acids and tissues or whole bodies of animals.
We studied protein synthesis, lipid synthesis and CO2 production by oxidation of glycine, alanine and leucine by slices of rat hippocampus during the period of brain growth spurt. The metabolism of the three amino acids decreased with the age of the animals. A major reduction was observed in protein synthesis, which was 4 times higher at 7 days of age than at 21 days of age for all amino acids studied. Glycine oxidation to CO2 was twice as high as alanine oxidation and ten times higher than leucine oxidation. The major pathway of leucine utilization was incorporation into proteins. Glycine was the amino acid that had the highest metabolic rate.
The recycling of amino acids in chronically catheterized ovine fetuses was determined using a single intravenous injection of a mixture of fifteen (U-14C) amino acids. The specific activity--time data were fitted to a three exponential curve which best represented the disappearance of the tracer from the fetal blood plasma. Based on the rates of total entry and irreversible disposal of amino acid carbon, it was determined that 85% of the free amino acid pool was recycled. In addition, 23.6% of the administered label was recovered in fetal blood 14CO2. No radioactivity was detectable in the maternal plasma after the injection of tracer into the fetus. The mean total residence time of the label in the fetuses studied was 7.22 +/- 0.89 minutes and corresponded to 6.46 +/- 0.93 metabolic cycles. The high rate of recycling of amino acids in the plasma pool is a reflection of the rapid turnover of proteins in the actively growing fetus.
A yeast strain highly resistant to propargylglycine (an inhibitor of cystathionine gamma-lyase) was isolated from air. It was partially characterized, but it has not been identified with any known yeast species. Its sulphur amino acid metabolism differed from that of other fungi by the lack of the reverse transsulphuration pathway from methionine to cysteine, as no activity of cystathionine beta-synthase or cystathionine gamma-lyase was found. The functional lack of this pathway was confirmed by growth tests and by experiments with [35S]methionine. In contrast to Saccharomyces cerevisiae neither homocysteine synthase nor the sulphate assimilation pathway were repressible by methionine in the new strain; on the contrary, a regulatory effect of cysteine was observed.
Exercising men, compared with women, have a greater increase in leucine oxidation but not lysine rate of appearance. The cause for this sexual dimorphism is unknown; however, an inhibition of beta-adrenoreceptor activity has previously been shown to mediate amino acid metabolism (Lamont LS, McCullough AJ, and Kalhan SC. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 268: E910-E916, 1995; Lamont LS, Patel DG, and Kalhan SC. J Appl Physiol 67: 221-225, 1989). This study was a gender comparison of leucine and lysine kinetics during a beta-adrenoreceptor blockade (beta1,beta2-blockade) and a placebo control by using a double-blind crossover protocol. Subjects exercised at 50% of their trial-specific maximal O2 consumption (1 h) after 7 days of dietary control. During exercise with beta-blockade, men had an increased nonprotein respiratory exchange ratio (P < 0.001), whereas women had an increased circulation of free fatty acids (P < 0.001). The genders also displayed distinct differences in exercise amino acid kinetics. The men, but not the women, increased leucine oxidation (P < 0.005) and lysine rate of appearance (P < 0.009) when exercising during beta-adrenergic blockade. This study indicates that during beta-blockade, exercising men increase their need for amino acids (and carbohydrate) to fuel energy needs, whereas women increase their mobilization of fat, thereby requiring less alternative fuels such as carbohydrate and amino acids. Gender-specific fuel preferences during exercise are regulated by beta-adrenergic-receptor activity. Substrate availability during exercise appears to modulate the amino acid oxidation differences between genders.
Experimental diabetes was induced in the bovine in two experiments by intravenous injection of alloxan (110 mg/kg or 60 mg/kg) in order to determine the role of insulin on nitrogen and amino acid metabolism. In experiment 1, insulin was injected to control hyperglycemia in one group of steers immediately after alloxan treatment (110 mg/kg). In experiment 2, insulin was injected beginning 6 days following alloxan treatment (60 mg/kg) to control hyperglycemia. Plasma glucose increased to 800-1400 mg/100 ml within 5-6 days following alloxan administration (experiment 1). A large surge of insulin release occurred immediately after alloxan administration, which was followed by a decrease in insulin concentrations to subnormal levels in those animals not treated with insulin. Alloxan-treated steers became acidotic by day 2 as indicated by a drop in blood pH, bicarbonate and base excess. Acid-base status improved in steers treated with alloxan plus insulin but did not return to normal. Alloxan treatment caused a marked increase in serum urea-N and creatinine concentrations and insulin treatment of the alloxanized animal decreased both serum urea-N and creatinine concentrations. Treatment with alloxan caused a two- to threefold increase in the plasma concentrations of valine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine and 3-methylhistidine and a decrease in alanine, threonine, citrulline and arginine. Insulin treatment of the alloxanized bovine maintained normal plasma concentrations of valine, isoleucine and leucine. In a third experiment, the injection of insulin (6 U/kg) into normal cattle caused a transient decline in plasma concentrations of branched-chain amino acids (BCAA); however, if glucose was continuously infused (125 mmol/hour) in addition to insulin injection, a sustained decrease in plasma BCAA concentrations was observed. These data support the concept that insulin promotes decreased plasma concentrations of BCAA either by promoting tissue anabolism by stimulating tissue uptake and protein synthesis or decreasing proteolysis and BCAA release.
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Methionine dependence is a feature unique to cancer cells, exhibited as inability to grow in a methionine-depleted environment supplemented with homocysteine, the immediate metabolic precursor of methionine. This study explores the effect of methionine depletion and homocysteine supplementation on the viability, sulfur amino acid metabolism and cell-cycle kinetics of normal and cancer cells, as well as their ability to recover from the treatments. An array of cells including hepatomas (HTC, Phi-1), prostate adenocarcinomas (PC-3) and transformed (3T3) and normal (HS-27) fibroblasts, has been used aiming to evaluate the importance of tissue specificity. All cell lines proliferated well in methionine-complete media (M+H-), whilst only the normal fibroblasts HS-27 grew in methionine-depleted homocysteine-supplemented media (M-H+). None of the tested cell lines were able to grow in media without methionine or homocysteine (M-H-). HTC was the only cell line that did not recover from the M-H+ treatment whilst PC-3 did not recover from the M-H- treatment. Methionine and homocysteine depletion (M-H+ and M-H-) were found to induce arrest at different phases of the cell cycle, depending on the cell line: the methionine-dependent HTC, PC-3 and 3T3 arrested at the S and G2/M phase, whilst Phi-1 and the methionine-independent HS-27 accumulated in the G1 phase. The cell-cycle kinetics showed that the observed blockades were reversible. The information resulting from these studies is important for not only the behavior of cancer cells, but also for appreciating the potential of developing cancer therapies based on methionine-depletion strategies.
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Previous efforts to simulate mammary metabolism have focused on energy, mostly considering amino acids (AA) in aggregate. The main objective of this work was to build a model of mammary metabolism, based on data from arterio-venous difference studies, which considered AA in sufficient detail to predict yields of milk solids. The model contains 19 state variables and considers the removal of 37 metabolites from blood, including 22 AA. It is driven by blood flow and arterial concentrations, and outputs include milk protein, milk lactose, and three classes of milk fat (by chain length). The model was parameterized using a balance version of it and the mean observations from four arterio-venous difference experiments, with a limited number of assumptions, and evaluated against these experiments. In assembling the balance model, milk protein output was not predicted satisfactorily, as some essential AA were not present in quantities great enough to support the rates of milk protein synthesis observed experimentally. Tryptophan showed the greatest deficit, followed by tyrosine plus phenylalanine, methionine, and histidine. In addition, significant quantities of pyruvate were needed to synthesize serine, glycine, and alanine. The supply of alpha-ketoglutarate plus glutamate to synthesize proline and glutamine was provided in part by catabolism of arginine; the remainder was derived from catabolism of other AA and energetic substrates.
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In this paper, we report the identification of genes from pine (PpAAT), Arabidopsis (AtAAT) and rice (OsAAT) encoding a novel class of aspartate aminotransferase (AAT, EC 2.6.1.1) in plants. The enzyme is unrelated to other eukaryotic AATs from plants and animals but similar to bacterial enzymes. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that this prokaryotic-type AAT is closely related to cyanobacterial enzymes, suggesting it might have an endosymbiotic origin. Interestingly, most of the essential residues involved in the interaction with the substrate and the attachment of pyridoxal phosphate cofactor in the active site of the enzyme were conserved in the deduced polypeptide. The polypeptide is processed in planta to a mature subunit of 45 kDa that is immunologically distinct from the cytosolic, mitochondrial and chloroplastic isoforms of AAT previously characterized in plants. Functional expression of PpAAT sequences in Escherichia coli showed that the processed precursor is assembled into a catalytically active homodimeric holoenzyme that is strictly specific for aspartate. These atypical genes are predominantly expressed in green tissues of pine, Arabidopsis and rice, suggesting a key role of this AAT in nitrogen metabolism associated with photosynthetic activity. Moreover, immunological analyses revealed that the plant prokaryotic-type AAT is a nuclear-encoded chloroplast protein. This implies that two plastidic AAT co-exist in plants: a eukaryotic type previously characterized and the prokaryotic type described here. The respective roles of these two enzymes in plant amino acid metabolism are discussed.