Nutritional Evidence Concerning Formation of Glycine from Threonine in the Chick

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Abstract
Threonine degradation in the body is generally considered to occur via the threonine dehydrase pathway which involves anaerobic deamination of threonine to a-ketobutyrate and ammonia. However, Russian workers (Braunstein and Vilenkina, 1949) observed formation of glycine and acetaldehyde from threonine in preparations of livers and kidneys from several species including the pigeon. The enzyme catalyzing this reaction has been designated glycinogenase (Braunstein and Vilenkina, 1949) and hydroxy-amino acid aldolase (Lin and Greenberg, 1954). Meltzer and Sprinson (1952) presented evidence that threonine cleavage to glycine and acetaldehyde may account for up to one-third of the threonine catabolized in the rat. Recent work at the Illinois Station has involved study of glycine metabolism in the chick, including an evaluation of the efficacy of various glycine precursors (Baker and Sugahara, 1970; Baker, Sugahara and Scott, 1968; Baker et al., 1970). Since the growing chick requires a dietary source of glycine at all stages of development between hatching and eight weeks posthatching (Graber and Baker, 1971), it is of interest to consider contributors to the chick's endogenous pool of glycine.

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