American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 25, 7-10, Copyright © 1972 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Relative resistance of the later phase of myelination to severe undernutrition in miniature swine

¹ From the Edward Mallinckrodt Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110; the Division of Neurology, St. Louis Children's Hospital, 500 South Kingshighway; and the Sinclair Comparative Medicine Research Farm, University of Missouri, Route #3, Columbia, Missouri 65201

The effect of protein deprivation on the later phase of myelination in the cerebral hemispheres of miniature swine was tested by feeding a 4% protein diet from 9 to 41 weeks of age. Animals fed this diet gained little body weight but their brain weights were 90% of those of age-matched controls. All lipid subclasses, including galactolipids and proteolipid proteins, which are found in high concentration in the myelin membrane were reduced to the same degree as the brain weights. There appeared to be no specific effect on the synthesis of the myelin membrane when the insult was initiated during the phase of slower synthesis of myelin lipids, even though significant deposition of the membrane occurred as evidenced by an almost threefold increase in the content of galactolipids and proteolipid proteins in the hemispheres.