These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Dietary selenium (Se) and copper (Cu) interact to affect homocysteine metabolism in rats.
    Author: Uthus EO, Ross S.
    Journal: Biol Trace Elem Res; 2009; 129(1-3):213-20. PubMed ID: 19104759.
    Abstract:
    Previously, we reported that both Se deficiency and Cu deficiency decreased plasma homocysteine (pHcys) and increased plasma glutathione (pGSH) in rats. We also showed that the catalytic subunit of glutamate-cysteine ligase (Gclc), which catalyzes the rate-limiting step in glutathione biosynthesis, was upregulated in Se and Cu deficiencies. We suggested that in both deficiencies, Hcys was being shunted through the trans-sulfuration pathway as a result of this up-regulation. Because both Se and Cu deficiencies have similar effects, we hypothesized that a combined deficiency would exacerbate the decrease in pHcys and the increase in pGSH by further up-regulating Gclc. In a 2 x 2 experiment, male weanling Sprague-Dawley rats (n = 8-20/group) were fed an amino-acid-based diet containing either 0 or 0.2 microg Se (as selenite)/g and <1 or 6 microg Cu (as Cu carbonate)/g for 5 weeks. Our findings show that a combined deficiency of both Se and Cu results in lower pHcys and significantly elevated pGSH. However, the up-regulation of liver Gclc alone cannot explain why rats fed with the doubly deficient diet have the lowest pHcys and the highest pGSH.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]