Acid-deficient Rats Research Articles

Effects of trans fatty acid isomers upon essential fatty acid deficiency in rats.

Feeding weanling male rats a diet free of essential fatty acid (EFA), containing 1% cholesterol, 2% sulfasuxidine, and 1% hydrogenated coconut oil for 3.5 months induced an EFA deficiency accompanied by severe testicular degeneration. The degeneration was partially corrected by supplementation with linoleate or linseed oil for 3 weeks. However, sperm were not found in the epididymis in any case. Trans isomers of linoleic acid were unable to induce recovery of the testis. The trans isomers inhibited growth, worsened the skin condition, and were found to be deposited in the animal fat.

The adrenal cortex of the pantothenic acid deficient rat: modification of the lesion by ACTH and cortisone treatment.

INTRODUCTION MANY workers have observed the adrenal lesion accompanying pantothenic acid deficiency in rats (Daft and Sebrell, 1939; Nelson, 1939; Ashburn, 1940; Deane and McKibbin, 1946). Briefly the lesion consists of congestion of the inner cortical zones with hemorrhage, necrosis, fibrosis, hemosiderin deposition and calcification. The medulla and zona glomerulosa are rarely involved. However, the mechanisms involved in the development of this lesion have received little attention. Adrenal cortical extract, desoxycorticosterone and anterior pituitary extract failed to modify the adrenal lesion in pantothenic acid deficient weanling rats (Mushett and Unna, 1941). Unpublished experiments of a similar type in our own laboratory were likewise unsuccessful. In the course of these experiments it occurred to us that two things might be needed—first, larger doses of more highly purified hormone preparations and, second, a more uniformly severe deficiency state in our rats. The latter became available with the...

Further role of antibiotics in aminopterin-induced folic acid deficiency in rats.

SummaryStreptomycin, terramycin, penicillin and Chloromycetin, unlike aureomycin, were ineffective in overcoming the deficiency induced by the feeding of aminopterin to rats. Citrovorum factor is able to counteract amino-pterin at low levels, indicating that the amino-pterin may be a citrovorum factor antagonist as well as a folic acid antagonist. The addition of aureomycin to a diet containing citrovorum factor provides better growth than could be obtained on either supplement alone.

Pantoyltaurine and Growth of Rats.

Feeding of pantoyltaurine failed to produce symptoms of pantothenic acid deficiency in rats. An antagonism between the two substances similar to that established in studies on bacterial growth could not be demonstrated.

Effect of Pantothenic Acid on the Nutritional Achromotrichia

Greying of the fur was first observed by Morgan, Cook and Davison and Lunde and Kringstad in black rats maintained on diets deficient in the vitamin B complex. Addition of preparations containing “filtrate factor”, of liver extracts containing pantothenic acid or of brewers' yeast have been reported to prevent the development of greying or to restore the black pigmentation of the hair. In our laboratory, greying of the hair was obtained in black and piebald rats on a diet consisting of casein, vitamin free, 18%; sucrose, 67%; butter fat, 9%; salt mixture, 4%; cod liver oil, 2%, and supplemented with thiamin, riboflavin, nicotinamide and vitamin B6. On this diet greying of the fur developed in approximately 80% of the animals within 4 weeks. At this time, the animals reached stationary weights and showed, in addition to the grey symmetrical patterns of the fur, signs characteristic of pantothenic acid deficiency in rats, namely, thinning of the fur, generalized scaly dermatitis, inflammation of the nasal mucosa, blood-caked whiskers, and hemorrhages in various organs, particularly in the adrenal cortex. The addition of graded doses of pantothenic acid (calcium pantothenate, Merck) to the diet demonstrated that a daily supplement of 80 or 100 μg of calcium pantothenate, e. g., doses representing the daily requirement for pantothenic acid in rats, prevented, besides the above mentioned deficiency symptoms, the greying of the fur, whereas daily doses of 5, 10, or 20 μg were insufficient to prevent the greying, and 40 μg gave inconsistent results. Comparable results were obtained with various concentrates from rice bran and liver. Although the addition of these concentrates caused better growth responses than pantothenic acid alone, their efficacy in preventing the greying of the hair was found to parallel closely their content of pantothenic acid as measured by the bacteriological assay.