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Effect of Vitamin E Deficiency on Collagen Metabolism in the Rat's Skin^1,2,

Department of Nutrition, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee

The effects of avitaminosis E on collagen metabolism in the skin of rats were studied. Hides from littermate male rats raised with vitamin E-sufficient or vitamin E-deficient diets were fractionated into neutral salt-soluble, acid-soluble and insoluble collagen. The rate of gel formation at 37°, pH 7.4, of both crude and purified neutral-salt and acid-soluble collagen solutions from the skin of these animals was measured together with the stability of those gels to 4° temperatures for various time periods. It was found that the animals raised with the vitamin E-deficient diets had a greater percentage of soluble collagen in their skins. The neutral salt-soluble collagen solutions from the deficient group did not form gels as readily as did those from their controls nor were these gels as stable to 4° temperature. These results suggest a defect in the formation of intermolecular and intramolecular crosslinkages in the collagen from the vitamin E-deficient group.

² Preliminary report read at the Annual Meeting, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, 1964, Chicago.

³ Holder of National Defense Education Act, Title IV, Fellowship for the part of this study.

⁴ Current address: Department of Food and Nutrition, Drexel Institute of Technology, Philadelphia.

Manuscript received 25 May 1966.