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Potential for Dietary Amino Acid Precursors of Neurotransmitters to Overcome Neurochemical Changes in Acute T-2 Toxicosis in Rats¹

Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1

Experiments were conducted to determine the potential for overcoming T-2 toxin—induced changes in brain neurotransmitter concentrations through dietary manipulation. Rats were fed either a tryptophan-deficient, gelatin-based diet or the same diet supplemented with a mixture of large neutral amino acids for 4 d. Rats were then dosed with 0 or 2.0 mg T-2 toxin/kg body weight and killed 4, 8 or 12 h after dosing. The large neutral amino acid supplements successfully reduced brain concentrations of tryptophan and serotonin in control rats, but this was not enough to overcome the acute effects seen in T-2 toxin—treated rats. A further experiment was then conducted to monitor the effect of T-2 toxin on the ratio of free to protein-bound tryptophan in plasma. Total plasma tryptophan increased in T-2 toxin—treated rats, although there were no significant differences in the ratio of free to protein-bound tryptophan. A final experiment was conducted to determine the specificity of the T-2 toxin effect on concentrations of plasma amino acids. Concentrations of amino acids that use the large neutral amino acid transport system into the brain were higher in T-2 toxin—treated animals. The only other amino acid that had a higher concentration was arginine. It was concluded that acute doses of T-2 toxin may selectively alter membrane transport of amino acids.

KEY WORDS: • T-2 toxin • dietary amino acids • rat • serotonin • catecholamines

¹ This work was supported by the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the Ontario Pork Producers' Marketing Board.

² Present address: Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Kuopio, P.O.B. 6, 70211 Kuopio, Finland.

³ To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Manuscript received 22 September 1987. Revision accepted 22 February 1988.

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