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Nutritional Response to Feeding L-Phenyllactic, Shikimic and D-Quinic Acids in Weanling Rats^1,2,

Department of Surgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, New York 10461

We studied the growth response of rats to shikimic acid, a known precursor of phenylalanine biosynthesis in bacteria. Two compounds, quinic acid and phenyllactic acid, chemically related to other intermediate compounds of phenylalanine biosynthesis, were also studied. It was expected that these compounds would stimulate phenylalanine biosynthesis by the gut flora; by either coprophagy or direct absorption, such phenylalanine would positively influence growth when rats were grown on a phenylalanine-deficient diet. Young male rats of the Fischer strain were fed either purified or chemically defined low phenylalanine diets for periods of 5 to 10 days. L-Phenylalanine supplementation permitted a growth response of 4 g/day with a feed efficiency of 3 (grams of feed consumed/gram of weight gained). L-Phenyllactic acid was not as effective as phenylalanine, producing a maximal growth rate approximately one-half of that induced by phenylalanine feeding. The activity of shikimic acid was even lower and was equivalent to one-quarter of the rate with phenyllactic acid. The feeding of shikimic acid produced a response similar to that produced by feeding phenylalanine at a dietary level of 0.04%, corresponding approximately to 10% of the phenylalanine requirement of the rat. Feeding D-quinic acid was without effect. When rats were treated with Neomycin sulfate, the growth response to shikimic acid was not seen. The data suggest that quinic acid cannot be converted to phenylalanine by the rat or its intestinal flora, that limited amounts of shikimic acid are converted to phenylalanine, and that this conversion requires an intestinal flora.

² This paper was presented in part at the 158th Annual Meeting, American Chemical Society, New York, 1969. E. Seifter, G. Rettura and S. M. Levenson, A growth response to shikimic acid feeding. Abstract, Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, no. 55, 1969.

³ Department of Biochemistry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, New York.

⁴ Department of Surgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, New York.

Manuscript received 30 December 1970.