Blood serum and liver phospholipids of rats with chronic choline—protein deficiency

The phospholipid content in the blood serum and liver tissue was studied for a period of eight months in rats kept on a cirrhosis-inducing diet with a high fat content and deficient in protein and choline, in animals receiving the same diet but with the addition of choline, and in control rats. Depending on the duration of its administration, the cirrhosis-inducing diet led to fatty infiltration of the liver, fibrocysts, and cirrhosis. At all stages of the pathological process there was a marked decrease in the phospholipid content in the blood serum and liver. In rats with developed nodular cirrhosis a tendency was observed for the phospholipid level to rise, possible on account of newly formed liver tissue. Choline prevented the development of fatty infiltration but did not completely prevent the fall in the phospholipid concentration in the liver.Presented by Academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR E. M. Tareev.Translated from Byulleten' Éksperimental'noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 79, No. 6, pp. 47–49, June, 1975.