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Chemical Pathology of Acute Amino Acid Deficiencies: Morphologic and Biochemical Changes in Young Rats Force-fed a Threonine-deficient Diet¹

Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

To observe the relative importance of partial versus complete absence of threonine in inducing a nutritional imbalance, young rats of the Sprague-Dawley strain were force-fed a threonine-deficient diet, one containing 0.25 or 0.5% instead of 1% DL-threonine, for 3, 7, 10, 14, 21 and 28 days. Animals force-fed the threonine-deficient diets gained less weight than control animals fed the complete diet, developed atrophy of the pancreas, submaxillary gland, parotid, stomach and thymus, and showed evidence of increased radioactive amino acid incorporation into hepatic and plasma protein, but decreased incorporation into gastrocnemius muscle protein. The results indicate that the level of dietary threonine plays an important role in the pathologic changes in the liver caused by threonine deficiency.

Manuscript received 25 June 1968.