Observations on folate metabolism in rats on a vitamin B 12-deficient diet

The regulation of folate and methionine metabolism

1. The isolated perfused rat liver and suspensions of isolated rat hepatocytes fail to form glucose from histidine, in contrast with the liver in vivo. Both rat liver preparations readily metabolize histidine. The main end product is N-formiminoglutamate. In this respect the liver preparations behave like the liver of cobalamin- or folate-deficient mammals. 2. Additions of L-methionine in physiological concentrations (or of ethionine [2-amino-4-(ethylthio)butyric acid]) promotes the degradation of formiminoglutamate, as is already known to be the case in cobalamin of folate deficiency. Added methionine also promotes glucose formation from histidine. 3. Addition of methionine accelerates the oxidation of formate to bicarbonate by hepatocytes. 4. A feature common to cobalamin-deficient liver and the isolated liver preparations is taken to be a low tissue methionine concentration, to be expected in cobalamin deficiency through a decreased synthesis of methionine and caused in liver preparations by a washing out of amino acids during the handling of the tissue. 5. The available evidence is in accordance with the assumption that methionine does not directly increase the catalytic capacity of formyltetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase; rather, that an increased methionine concentration raises the concentration of S-adenosylmethionine, thus leading to the inhibition of methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase activity [Kutzbach & Stokstad (1967) Biochim. Biophys. Acta 139, 217-220; Kutzbach & Stokstad (1971) Methods Enzymol. 18B, 793-798], that this inhibition causes an increase in the concentration of methylenetetrahydrofolate and the C1 tetrahydrofolate derivatives in equilibrium with methylenetetrahydrofolate, including 10-formyltetrahydrofolate; that the increased concentration of the latter accelerates the formyltetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase reaction, because the normal concentration of the substrate is far below the Km value of the enzyme for the substrate. 6. The findings are relevant to the understanding of the regulation of both folate and methionine metabolism. When the methionine concentration is low, C1 units are preserved by the decreased activity of formyltetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase and are utilized for the synthesis of methionine, purines and pyrimidines. On the other hand when the concentration of methionine, and hence adenosylmethionine, is high and there is a surplus of C1 units as a result of excess of dietary supply, formyltetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase disposes of the excess. When ample dietary supply causes an excess of methionine, which has to be disposed of by degradation, the increased activity of formyltetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase decreases the supply of methyltetrahydrofolate. Thus homocysteine, instead of being remethylated, enters the pathway of degradation via cystathionine. 7. The findings throw light on the biochemical abnormalities associated with cobalamin deficiency (megaloblastic anaemia), especially on the 'methylfolate-trap hypothesis'. This is discussed. 8...

Effect of some anticonvulsant drugs on depletion of folate in rats on a vitamin B12-deficient diet

Rats fed on vitamin B12-deficient or vitamin B12-supplemented diets and treated with phenobarbitone by intraperitoneal injection for 5 d showed significant increases in the activity of glutamate formiminotransferase in liver. The only significant depletion in liver folate activity was in vitamin B12-supplemented rats that were starved for 48 h. When rats were given the same diets, with phenobarbitone and diphenylhydantoin added, for 12 weeks or more in two separate experiments, significant increases in transferase activity were found only in the livers of animals fed on the deficient diet. However, there was significant depletion of liver folate in animals taking the supplemented diet.

The effects of dietary histidine, methionine and homocystine on vitamin B12 and folate levels in rat liver

1. L-histidine (20 g/kg) added to vitamin B12-deficient and cyanocobalamin-supplemented diets based on soya-bean flour reduced the growth of rats given the vitamin B12-deficient diet but stimulated growth of rats given the cyanocobalamin-supplemented diet. Liver weight (g/kg body-weight)increased, but the protein content of the livers decreased, in rats given histidine supplements. The histidine was associated with significantly higher folate concentrations in the livers of cyanocobalamin-supplemented rats.

The metabolic consequences of vitamin B-12/methionine deficiency in rats

The synthesis of liver pteroylglutamates (folates) from injected [3-H]-pteroylglutamic acid was investigated in vitamin B-12 methionine-deficient rats and pair-fed controls using improved extraction and chromatographic procedures to identify the monoglutamyl derivatives present. Livers from deficient animals had significantly increased levels of radioactive 5-methyltetrahydropteroylglutamate detected after conjugase treatment of extracts and significantly decreased levels of radioactive tetrahydropteroylglutamate and formylated derivatives. However, that this is only a temporary effect and the result of a decreased rate of equilibration of the exogenous radioactivity was shown by measuring the fully equilibrated endogenous pools. This was done by microbiological assay of the endogenous liver folates with Lactobacillus casei. No significant difference was found between deficient animals and controls in the proportion of the endogenous microbiologically active derivatives present. These results in the rat do not support the idea that in vitamin B-12 deficiency the cellular folates accumulate as the reduced 5-methyl derivative, resulting in inadequate amount of the other cofactors to partipicate in nucleic acid biosynthesis.

Folic acid metabolism in vitamin B12-deficient sheep. Effects of injected methionine on liver constituents associated with folate metabolism

1. The effects of injected l-methionine (2g every second day for 28 days) on liver folates and other constituents of liver associated with folate metabolism were studied in vitamin B(12)-deficient ewes and their pair-fed controls receiving vitamin B(12). The dose rate of methionine used was sufficient to restore almost to normal the elevated excretion in the urine of formiminoglutamate in the deficient animals. 2. Liver folates active for Lactobacillus casei, Streptococcus faecalis R and Pediococcus cerevisiae were severely depressed in deficient livers and were partly restored by methionine. Analysis of the folates after ion-exchange chromatography showed that the major effect of methionine was to increase the concentrations of tetrahydrofolates and formyltetrahydrofolates. Methyltetrahydrofolates were also increased, but there was no effect of methionine on the small amounts of incompletely reduced folates present in deficient livers. The folates present were predominantly penta-, hexa- and hepta-glutamates whether or not animals received vitamin B(12) or methionine. 3. Concentrations of ATP, NAD(+), NADH and NADPH were lower in freeze-clamped liver from vitamin B(12)-deficient sheep than in liver from pair-fed, vitamin B(12)-treated sheep. These changes were not affected by methionine which was also without effect on the elevated K(+)/Na(+) ratios found in deficient livers. 4. The livers of vitamin B(12)-deficient animals contained lower concentrations of choline and higher concentrations of lipid than their pair-fed controls. These effects were reversed by methionine.