Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol 54, Issue 1 147-151, Copyright © 1983 by American Physiological Society

ARTICLES

Potentiation of oxygen toxicity in rats by dietary protein or amino acid deficiency

S. M. Deneke, S. N. Gershoff and B. L. Fanburg

Rats fed 3% casein diets for 6 days showed an increased susceptibility to greater than 98% oxygen [mean survival time 46.9 +/- 4.1 (SD) h] compared with animals fed 25% casein diets (mean survival time 60 +/- 5 h). The 3% casein diet did not reduce the responses to hyperoxia of lung glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, glutathione peroxidase, and glutathione reductase (NAD(P)H), which maintain tissue levels of reduced glutathione or lung superoxide dismutase levels. While supplementation of the 3% casein diet with the sulfur-containing amino acids (cysteine, cystine, or methionine) prevented the increased oxygen toxicity, supplementation with leucine, a nonsulfur-containing amino acid, had no effect on potentiation of toxicity. Animals fed the unsupplemented 3% casein diet failed to show an elevation of lung glutathione in response to hyperoxia. When the 3% casein diet was supplemented with cysteine, total lung glutathione levels increased normally during oxygen exposure. Supplementation of the 25% protein diet with cysteine did not further protect these animals. We conclude that potentiation of oxygen toxicity by dietary protein deficiency in the rat is due to the low sulfur-containing amino acid content of the diet; the mechanism of increased toxicity by hyperoxia is probably related to an inability to increase glutathione levels due to a shortage of the cysteine component of the glutathione tripeptide.

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