[Some peculiarities of skin metabolism with vitamin A deficit]

The paper deals with studying the effect of vitamin A deficit in the rat organism on the incorporation of the C14-labelled asparaginic acid serine-3-C14 and glycine-2-C14 into different fractions of skin proteins, with determining the content of glycine cycle components (glycine, glycolic acid and glycolic aldehyde), activity of phosphatases and succinate dehydrogenase in the skin as well as the quantity of mucopolysaccharides and seromucoids in the skin and blood serum. It is established that with vitamin A deficit the intensity of the incorporation of labelled asparaginic acid and serine into the skin total proteins decreases and the incorporation of glycine-2-C14 into the total proteins and the fraction of soluble non-collagen proteins of skin increases. The intensity of the incorporation of the labelled asparaginic acid into the skin soluble collagen falls by 40% but almost twice as high into the soluble non-collagen proteins. A 47% decrease of glycine, 22% fall of glycolic acid and almost two-fold increase of glycolic aldehyde are observed in the skin of the animals with A-avitaminosis. Skin extracts manifest a higher activity of alkaline and acid phosphatases, but a lower activity of succinate dehydrogenase in comparison with control.