Journal of Nutrition

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Journal of Nutrition Vol. 43 No. 2 February 1951, pp. 281-294
Copyright © 1951 by American Society for Nutrition
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Effect of Pyridoxine Deficiency on Reproduction in the Rat1

One Figure

Marjorie M. Nelson and Herbert M. Evans

Institute of Experimental Biology, University of California, Berkeley

Reproduction has been studied in adult rats placed on different pyridoxine-deficient diets for varying periods of time. Only slightly adverse effects on reproduction were obtained by the simple omission of the vitamin, even with two months of deficiency prior to breeding. The addition of succinylsulfathiazole to repress intestinal synthesis did not result in any greater reproductive impairment. In confirmation of previous studies, the addition of the antagonist, desoxypyridoxine, to the deficient diet resulted in a high incidence of resorptions with only 10 to 20 days of deficiency prior to breeding. The early appearance of erythrocytes in the vaginal smears and the extreme rapidity of the resorptive process distinguished this vitamin deficiency from others previously studied and indicated the possibility of hormonal deficiencies in these animals.

Pair-fed animals supplemented with high levels of pyridoxine demonstrated that food restriction, although marked, was not the cause of the resorptions.

The growth of suckling young born from mothers with a pyridoxine deficiency was markedly retarded early in the lactation period, and survival to weaning rarely occurred. Neither succinylsulfathiazole nor desoxypyridoxine accentuated the deficiency in such young during the lactation period. Epileptiform convulsions were observed in some of these young but occurred to a greater extent in young suckled by mothers from whose diet the vitamin was withdrawn on the day of birth.

1 Aided by grants from the Roche Anniversary Foundation, the Board of Research and the Department of Agriculture of the University of California, and the Rockefeller Foundation, New York City. We are greatly indebted to Dr. Randolph Major of Merck and Company, Inc., Rahway, New Jersey, for generous supplies of desoxypyridoxine, 2-methyl-1, 4-naphthoquinone, and crystalline B vitamins; to Dr. E. L. Sevringhaus of Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc., Nutley, New Jersey, for crystalline d-biotin; and to Dr. T. H. Jukes, Lederle Laboratories, Pearl River, New York, for synthetic pteroylglutamic acid.

Manuscript received 17 October 1950.




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