ALTERATIONS IN RAT SERUM PROTEINS IN RELATION TO DIETARY PROTEIN'S AND B VITAMINS I. Studies with Growing Rats BY ANAND G. MULGAONKAR AND A. SREENIVASAN, F.A.Sc. (Department of Chemical Technology, University of Bombay, Bombay-19) Received February 4, 1959 THE relation of dietary proteins to serum proteins in animals has been studied extensively. Differences in the rates of restoration of serum albumin, serum globulin and blood hemoglobin in depleted dogs and rats have been demonstrated as a result of feeding with different types of proteins (Pomme- renke et aL, 1935; Melnick et aL, 1936; Weech and Goettsch, 1938 ; Madden and Whipple, 1940; Cox and Mueller, 1944; Seeley, 1945; Allison et al., 1946; Robscheit-Robbins and Whipple, 1949), and with synthetic mixtures of amino acids (Robscheit-Robbins et al., 1947; Sebrell and Mc- Daniel, 1952). However, the influence of dietary protein quality on serum globulin fractions is not well defined. Chow et aL (1948) observed that enzymatic hydrolyzates of casein and lactalbumin were equally effective in restoring plasma albumin and y-globulins but that casein was superior to lactalbumin in restoring E-globulins and fibrinogen, in protein depleted dogs. Damodaran (1953) compared the electrophoretic patterns of serum proteins of rats maintained on a 3 per cent. pulse protein diet with those of rats main- mined on an 18 per cent. casein diet and observed that the former group had comparatively low concentrations of serum proteins although the relative concentrations of the different fractions were the same as those of animals on the casein diet. There are indications that vitamins affect the serum protein profile. Greenberg et aL (1952) observed that hypoalbuminemia in monkeys in partial or complete deficiencies of vitamin B6 and nicotinic acid was associated with a rise in 7-globulin level and, in choline deficiency, with elevated level of t-globulin. Similar observations were made by Fisher and Garrity (1953) who reported a decrease in albumin and increase ill a- and t-globulins in sera of choline deficient rats. Considerable data are available on antibody synthesizing ability of vitamin deficient animals (Axelrod and Pruzansky, 1955). Axelrod and co- workers (see Axelrod, 1953) have presented a rough classification of the effect 408
