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Articles

Certain Immune Markers Are Not Good Indicators of Mild to Moderate Biotin Deficiency in Rats¹

Ricki M. Helm^*, Nell I. Mock, Pippa Simpson^** and Donald M. Mock^,**2

^* Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute and the Departments of Biochemistry and ^** Pediatrics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205

²To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mockdonaldm{at}uams.edu

To assess the effects of marginal biotin deficiency on immune function and thereby evaluate immune function as a potential marker for impaired biotin status, we investigated immune function in a rat model during progression from sufficiency to moderate biotin deficiency. As immune function indicators, we assessed the IgG response to a vaccine and the cytokine responses and relative proportions of lymphocyte subpopulations in the immunocytes in blood, spleen and thymus. Neither phenotype nor organ redistribution of lymphocytes differed between biotin-deficient and biotin-sufficient rats. Assessment of immune function by mitogen T cell proliferation, mitogen-induced interferon- and interleukin-4 levels, IgG antibody responses and natural killer cell activity were not significantly different in mild to moderately biotin-deficient rats compared with biotin-sufficient controls. The absence of effects on immune function was not attributable to failure to induce biotin deficiency; the rats exhibited unequivocal evidence of biotin deficiency, including reduced hepatic biotin and impaired leucine metabolism resulting from deficiency of the biotin-dependent enzyme methylcrotonyl-CoA carboxylase. We conclude that the immune markers examined are not promising candidates as indicators of mild to moderate deficiency in humans.

KEY WORDS: • immune function • biotin deficiency • rats • marginal deficiency

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