Acetate intolerance and an inhibitor of acetate utilization in hemodialysis patients

Diminished ability to utilize acetate (acetate intolerance) developed in a male patient on chronic hemodialysis after five years of maintenance dialysis. His ability to utilize lactate was also subnormal. We studied acetate metabolism in vitro by isolating lymphocytes from the patient's blood before dialysis and measuring their ability to convert [1-14C]acetate to 14CO2. His cells metabolized acetate only 35% as well as did lymphocytes from normal adults. The inhibition appeared when the patient's lymphocytes were cultured, and the ability of normal lymphocytes to oxidize acetate decreased after they had been incubated in the patient's plasma. We conclude that an inhibitor of acetate utilization is present in the plasma and in (or on) the cells of this acetate-intolerant patient. The diminished ability of the patient to utilize lactate and the presence of normal concentrations of pyruvate, citrate, and ketone bodies in his blood suggest that the inhibitor functions at the cell surface to impede the entrance of acetate into the cells. The inhibitor appears to be dialyzable; its nature is unknown. Its accumulation in the plasma of chronic hemodialysis patients has not been thus far associated with any deleterious effects other than prolonging the metabolic acidosis of such patients.