cit-title-group
Abstract
' Laboratory of Nutrition, Department of Biochemistry, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel (Received for publication August 13, 1954) Downloaded from jn.nutrition.org by guest on January 18, 2011 In a previous paper it was reported that rats maintained on a diet low in protein exhibit a diminished tolerance to emetine ( Buechler, '48). However, increas ing the protein content of the diet, as well as the administra tion of extracts of liver, muscle kidney, vitamin B12, aureomycin streptomycin were shown to raise the re sistance of protein-depleted rats to the level of well nourished animals ( , '54). It appears, there fore, that nutritional factors play an important rôlein the resistance of rats to this drug. The high toxicity of emetine, which hampers its general intensive use in spite of its great value in the treatment of amoebic infections, is not well understood in terms of biochemical lesion However, it may be postulated that emetine causes nutritional metabolic changes in certain tissues, which ultimately present themselves in the form of toxic symptom It was, therefore, decided to study the metabolism of rats during prolonged treatment with this drug. This paper presents our studies on vitamin metabolism. METHODS PROCEDURES