Alkaptonuria experimental

Additional interest arose when it was found possible to produce experimental alkaptonuria in animals. This can, for example, be brought about... 

Experimental alkaptonuria has also been produced in rats on a diet de-ficent in sulfur-containing amino acids (295). Similar excretory patterns were produced after additional phenylalanine, tyrosine, or their corresponding keto acids, and the condition was relieved on gi dng cysteine, but not ascorbic acid (644). Moreover the p-hydroxyphenylpyruvate excretion was much lower, relative to the homogentisic acid excretion, than in the type of ascorbate-dependent alkaptonuria studied by Sealock in the guinea pig (rats cannot in any case be made ascorbic acid-deficient). Xeuberger and Webster (644) also showed that this second type of experimental alkaptonuria could be produced in many types of amino acid imbalance, or in protein deficiency, and that the threshold intake of phenylalanine or tyrosine required to produce the condition varied with the nutritional state and also with the acid-base balance, acid urines being associated with a decreased homogentisic acid excretion (cf. also 150, 273, 787). 

The intact animal can be improved for experimental purposes if it is rendered abnormal in some way, by genetic malfunction, by illness, or by operation. Genetic defects, or mutations, are used widely in the study of bacterial metabolism, where they can be read ily induced, for example through irradiation by X-rays or from a radioactive source. Genetic defects frequently reveal themselves in the form of the absence of one specific enzyme, and metabolic studies with such enzymically defective preparations are of the same type as those made possible by the use of a specific enzymic inhibitor which we discussed above. Genetic defects in animals are rarer, but classic cases of the absence of specific enzymes and hence the accumulation of abnormal metabolites are provided in humans by the genetically carried diseases of phenylketonuria and alkaptonuria. In both, unusual substances are excreted in the urine, and the analysis of the reasons for their appearance has led to valuable information about the mechanism of amino acid metabolism in the body. 

III. Relation between homogentisate, ferrous ion, and L-aseorbic acid in experimental alkaptonuria in guinea pigs. J. Biochem. (Tokyo) 38, 297-302 (1951). 

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