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Deprivation of Amino Acids and Prenatal Brain Development in Rats¹

Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Department of Biological Chemistry, Mental Retardation Center, and Brain Research Institute, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California 90024

A protein-free diet (AA) containing a complete chemically defined mixture of L-amino acids or this mixture deprived of one of the essential amino acids, tryptophan, lysine or methionine, respectively, was fed to pregnant rats. The feeding period was 0 to 21 or 10 to 21 days of pregnancy. At birth the following newborn parameters were measured: body weight, cerebral weight, cerebral DNA (cell number) and cerebral protein, as well as placental weight, placental DNA and placental protein. As compared with normal (pelleted) stock diet, feeding AA produced small decreases that were significant for body weight and some cerebral parameters, but no significant decreases for placental parameters; thus, it remains uncertain whether our present knowledge of nutritional factors for optimal fetal development is sufficient to devise a faultless synthetic diet for pregnancy. Omission of tryptophan, lysine or methionine, respectively, from AA, resulted in offspring significantly inferior to offspring of dams fed AA diet in all cerebral parameters; the deficiencies were essentially similar to those produced in our previous study by total protein deprivation. Thus, omission of single essential amino acids during pregnancy may be at least as harmful as total absence of dietary protein.

KEY WORDS: • amino acids, deprivation of • synthetic diet • brain development, prenatal • fetal development

¹ Presented in part at the Third Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, November 7–10, 1973. This study was supported by grants HD-05394, HD-05615, HD-00345 and HD-04612 from the U. S. Public Health Service.

² Post-doctorate trainee, USPHS training grant HD-00345 to Mental Retardation Center, U.C.L.A.

Manuscript received 5 December 1973.