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Status of the Microcirculation during Acute Choline Deficiency^{1 ,2}

Departments of Surgery, Pathology, Anesthesiology and Physiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, New York, New York

Weanling 21-day-old male rats of the Fischer strain were fed a choline-deficient diet, some with and some without choline supplementation. Five days later, none had any signs of nephropathy by blood urea nitrogen concentration or by gross and microscopic examination of the kidneys. The mesoappendiceal circulation of the nonsupplemented rats appeared ischemic when compared with that of the choline-supplemented rats. There was a striking alteration in the characteristic reaction of the microvessels to topical epinephrine. In choline-supplemented rats, an average of 0.48 µg/ml epinephrine caused maximal responses of the precapillary sphincters, lesser responses of the precapillary arterioles, and no reaction of the supplying artery. In marked contrast, less than 10% this concentration, 0.03 µg/ml epinephrine, resulted in pronounced vasoconstriction of the supplying artery with minimal or no reactions of the smaller vessels in the rats not supplemented with choline. These data are consistent with our view that the feeding of diets low in choline results in an imbalance in vasoactive mediators due to a decrease in tissue acetylcholine which leads to vasospasm and ischemia of the kidneys resulting in the characteristic nephropathy of acute choline deficiency.

² This paper was presented in part at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1968. Nagler, A. L., S. M. Levenson and S. Baez 1968 Microcirculation in choline deficiency. Federation Proc., 27: 487 (abstract).

³ Department of Surgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, New York, New York.

⁴ Department of Pathology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, New York, New York.

⁵ Departments of Anesthesiology and Physiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, New York, New York.

Manuscript received 8 July 1968.