Abstract
Male, Sprague-Dawley rats were weaned on postnatal day 17 to a semi-purified diet in which fat supplied 10% of the energy. Compared with rats allowed to wean spontaneously to the same maternal diet, prematurely weaned rats showed elevations in hepatic glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and malic enzyme activities by postnatal day 20; the activities of both enzymes peaked on postnatal day 25. Lipogenesis in vivo, estimated by using 3H 2O as a tracer, increased slowly in the liver and carcas of spontaneously weaned animals. In contrast, premature weaning led to increases in lipogenesis in both compartments. Hepatic lipogenesis in prematurely weaned rats, whether expressed in terms of radioactivity or as a fraction of total synthesis, peaked at the age of 20 days. The results suggested that the elevations of hepatic lipogenic enzyme activities which occur in prematurely weaned rats probably reflect increased demand for NADPH.
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