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Dietary Nicotinamide Supplementation Increases Xanthine Oxidoreductase Activity in the Kidney and Heart but Not Liver of Obese Zucker Rats^1,2,

The University of Georgia, Department of Foods and Nutrition, Athens, GA 30602-3622

The conversion of xanthine dehydrogenase to xanthine oxidase that produces oxygen radicals has been implicated in the ischemic injury to the myocardium and to the kidney. Xanthine dehydrogenase uses NAD as the electron acceptor to catalyze a reaction which does not produce any oxygen free radicals and may depress the conversion of xanthine dehydrogenase to xanthine oxidase. Nicotinamide is the preferred precursor for NAD. This study was conducted to examine the effect of an 18% casein diet supplemented with 0.5% nicotinamide on the activity of oxidoreductase and its two enzyme forms, xanthine dehydrogenase and xanthine oxidase, in kidney, heart and liver of female obese Zucker rats that spontaneously develop glomerulosclerosis, cardiomegaly and fatty liver. Lean litter mates were used as controls. Nicotinamide supplementation had no effect on the activities of these enzyme forms in the liver of either obese rats or lean rats. Obese rats fed the nicotinamide supplemented diet had higher activities of these enzyme forms in kidneys and hearts than unsupplemented diet fed obese rats, but this difference was not observed in lean rats. In unsupplemented rats, xanthine oxidase activity in the kidney was greater in lean rats than obese rats. Thus, the abnormalities observed in obese rats are unlikely attributable to the xanthine oxidase-mediated oxidant stress.

KEY WORDS: • nicotinamide • obesity • rats • xanthine oxidoreductase • xanthine oxidase • xanthine dehydrogenase

¹ Supported by Georgia Agricultural Experiment Station Project #H-634.

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 and reprint requests should be addressed.

Manuscript received 23 August 1994. Revision accepted 19 January 1995.