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Effect of Vitamin B₆ on the Growth of Rats Fed Diets Limiting in an Essential Amino Acid and on the Utilization of Isomers of Tryptophan, Methionine and Valine^{1, 2,}

Department of Animal Husbandry and Nutrition, Agricultural Experiment Station, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama

The influence of dietary supplements of pyridoxine on the activities of the L- and D-isomers of tryptophan, methionine, and valine for the growth of weanling rats was investigated. Diets were designed to be low in pyridoxine and the amino acid under investigation.

Growth and efficiency of gains of the animals were improved by increased levels in the diets of either pyridoxine or the amino acid under study or both.

The growth-promoting activities of both the L- and D-isomers of the amino acids studied were enhanced with increased amounts of pyridoxine in the diets. With an optimum amount of vitamin B₆ in the diet, D-methionine and the hydroxy analogue of methionine were equal to L-methionine in promoting growth; D-tryptophan was about 50% as active as L-tryptophan; D-valine was less than one-third as effective as L-valine.

Dietary pyridoxine levels were observed to influence the pattern of plasma free-amino acids.

² These studies were supported by the Williams-Waterman Fund of the Research Corporation and by the National Institutes of Health, grant no. A-1175. The author wishes to express his appreciation to Lederle Laboratories for folacin, to A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company for inositol, to Merck and Company for the other vitamins used in this study, to E. I. duPont de Nemours and Company and the Dow Chemical Company for amino acids.

³ Present address: U. S. Army Medical Research and Nutrition Laboratory, Fitzsimons General Hospital, Denver 30, Colorado.

Manuscript received 20 March 1961.