Pattern of Essential Amino Acid Requirement for Growing Rats Fed on a Low Amino Acid Diet

Abstract

Requirement pattern of essential amino acids for growing rats was investigated at low dietary level of nitrogen (0.62% of nitrogen) for the basic knowledge of amino acid supplementation to low protein diets. The basal diet contained 3% of essential amino acid mixture and 2% of non-essential amino acid mixture with appropriate amount of the other nutrients. The present pattern indicated relatively lower requirement for lysine and rather higher requirement for phenylalanine, valine and arginine as compared with those of several workers obtained for maximum growth of rats with diet containing sufficient amount of nitrogen. Application of dose response curves of each amino acid for the estimation of the order of the limiting amino acids was suggested.