The modification of choline deficiency by simultaneous pantothenic acid deficiency.

It was found recently (1) that feeding a cholesterol-rich diet to pantothenic acid-deficient rats did not result in the fatty livers and high levels of cholesterol in liver and serum seen in comparable animals maintained on a normal diet. Decrease in food intake appeared not to account for this phenomenon, since the food intake of the deficient group on a body weight basis was higher than that of the normal animals. Pair-fed normal and riboflavin-deficient, as well as pyridoxine-deficient, rats manifested the usual increases in total lipide and cholesterol content of the livers when 1 per cent cholesterol was present in the diets. These findings appeared to indicate a specific relationship between pantothenic acid, perhaps as part of coenzyme A, and the fat metabolism. Since the diets used in these experiments are well supplied with lipotropic factors, the possible rBle of choline in the prevention of cholesterol and fat deposition in the pantothenic acid-deficient rat was of interest. If the production and breakdown of acetylcholine, cholesterol, and fatty acids are adversely affected by lack of coenzyme A, the concentration of tissue choline might be different in the deficient and normal animals and the effects of this might be more easily observable if choline intake were restricted. Since choline deficiency has often been shown to produce fatty livers and hemorrhagic kidneys, the influence of pantothenic acid deficiency in preventing fat deposition might be expected to decrease the severity of the choline deficiency. However, the mechanisms of fatty liver production by dietary cholesterol and by choline deficiency may not be the same and the impact of pantothenic acid deficiency upon these two conditions might therefore not be identical. The effects of simultaneous choline and pantothenic acid deficiencies were therefore of interest.