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Folate Catabolism Is Increased during Pregnancy in Rats

Department of Clinical Medicine, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland ^* Department of Biochemistry, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

The hypothesis examined in the present study is that pregnancy results in a greater rate of folate catabolism. Mammalian folate catabolism proceeds by cleavage of the vitamin at the C₉-N₁₀ position to yield p-aminobenzoylglutamate, which is quantitatively excreted in the urine after its acetylation. A recently developed HPLC method for the determination of endogenous levels of this catabolite, acetamidobenzoylglutamate, in rat urine was used to investigate folate catabolism in three groups of female rats (n = 6/group), one nonpregnant and two pregnant groups. One of the pregnant groups was allowed to feed freely whereas the other was pair-fed to the nonpregnant control group. The daily excretion of acetamidobenzoylglutamate was stable in the nonpregnant group over the experimental period but increased significantly with progression of gestation in both pregnant groups, in which values peaked at d 18 to concentrations of up to three times those of the nonpregnant animals. In both pregnant groups the values fell significantly before parturition, demonstrating that increased catabolism of folate is a feature of pregnancy per se and not simply due to increased weight. These results suggest that increased catabolism may make an important contribution to the folate deficiency associated with pregnancy.

KEY WORDS: • folate catabolism • rats • pregnancy

¹ To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Human Nutrition Research Group, Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulster at Coleraine, BT52 1SA, Northern Ireland.

Manuscript received 4 September 1992. Revision accepted 19 January 1993.

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