Effect of alcohol and diet on 3H-leucine incorporation into brain and liver protein. I. Acute intoxication and vitamin deficiency in rats.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Male 25-day-old Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into 4 groups; each group of 27-29 animals received either a normal diet (diet I), 1 deficient in folic acid (diet II), a thiamine-deficient diet (diet III) or 1 lacking thiamine and folic acid (diet IV). After 28-30 days, half of the rats in each group were given i.p. injections of 1.5 ml of ethanol/100 g of body wt (in 20% vol/vol solution); the controls were given saline. The rats were decapitated 3 h after the injection, and brain and liver tissues incubated in a solution containing [3H]leucine. Rats given diets I and II maintained their weight, but rats given diets III and IV reduced their food consumption after the first 12-14 days and lost weight. The thiamine-deficient diets (III and IV) resulted in retarded cerebral, cerebellar and liver growth. The in-vitro incorporation of [3H]leucine into anterior- and posterior-cerebellar protein, and into cerebral-cortex protein, was lower in rats receiving diet III than in rats receiving the other diets. Incorporation of [3H]leucine into liver protein was significantly lower in rats receiving diets III and IV than in other rats. Administration of ethanol reduced the incorporation of the labeled amino acid into cortical and cerebellar protein and increased the incorporation into liver protein in the rat on the normal diet, but did not significantly affect [3H]leucine incorporation in rats given the vitamin-deficient diets. Malnutrition may change the response of the protein-synthesizing machinery in the CNS of rats in such a way that the normal response to alcohol intoxication fails to occur.