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Study of One-carbon Metabolism in Neonatal Vitamin B₁₂-deficient Rats^1,2,

Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

By feeding diets deficient in vitamin B₁₂ and other lipotropic substances, anomalies such as hydrocephalus, umbilical hernia and spina bifida were produced in neonatal rats. The incidence of congenital hydrocephalus was increased when 2.1 or 4.2 mmoles/100 g diet of DL-methionine was added to diets deficient in choline and vitamin B₁₂. Measurements of DNA, RNA, protein, proteolipid, and total lipid showed no quantitative differences between embryos born to dams maintained on deficient or control rations. Likewise, there were no differences found in brain phospholipids or in the incorporation of L-methionine-methyl-¹⁴C into various chemical constituents. It was concluded that alterations in brain phospholipids did not play a significant role in the pathogenesis of the nutritionally induced neural developmental anomalies, and it is suggested that dams furnish one-carbon fragments to the developing embryos at the expense of their own tissue requirements.

² This material was presented, in part, at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, April, 1968.

Manuscript received 27 December 1968.