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Dietary Pyrroloquinoline Quinone: Growth and Immune Response in BALB/c Mice^1,2,

Department of Nutrition, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, ^* Department of Rheumatology, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 95616

Pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ) is proposed as a nutritionally important growth factor, and we provide evidence that PQQ improves reproduction performance in BALB/c mice and stimulates neonatal growth. In the first experiment, weanling female BALB/c mice were adapted to a chemically-defined diet containing 0, 100, 200, 300, 1000, or 5000 ng PQQ/g of diet. The mice were bred and their reproductive performance and surviving offspring were assessed for 20-wk. Reproductive outcome was markedly compromised for the groups most deprived of PQQ. Supplemented groups (1000 ng PQQ/g diet) had 8 pups/litter compared with 4–5 pups/litter in the PQQ-deprived groups (300 ng PQQ/g diet). Of the pups surviving to weaning, 8 of 10 survived when PQQ was added to the diet (300 ng PQQ/g diet) compared with 4 of 10 in the PQQ-deficient group. The apparent requirement for PQQ for optimal growth of surviving neonates was estimated to be 300 ng PQQ/g of diet. Moreover, splenic cell response to the mitogens concanavalin A and lipopolysaccharide, appeared related to PQQ intake. In a second experiment, female BALB/c mice were fed diets containing PQQ added at 0 or 1000 ng/g of diet, and interleukin 1 and 2 production were assessed. In particular, levels of interleukin 2, an autocrine and paracrine growth factor, were reduced in mice fed the deficient diet at a time when T-cell proliferation occurs in neonates. Results suggest that PQQ or similar compounds may play nutritionally important roles at critical stages in development.

KEY WORDS: • pyrroloquinoline quinone • BALB/c mice • mitogen response • interleukin production

¹ Supported in part by USDA grant 89-37200-4429 and NIH grant DK 35747. Some supplies were purchased with funds from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, State of California.

² The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

³ To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Manuscript received 21 June 1993. Revision accepted 20 December 1993.

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