Tissue coenzyme A in normal and induced states of growth.

Results of studies on pantothenic acid-deficient rats stimulated with anterior pituitary growth hormone (l-3) suggest involvement of pantothenic acid, or its metabolically active form, coenzyme A (4), in the mechanism by which growth hormone stimulates the growth process. Lotspeich (l), for example, describes the rapid production of symptoms of acute pantothenic acid deficiency as a sequel to the administration of growth hormone in adult rats maintained on a pantothenic acid-deficient diet. Beare, Beaton, and McHenry (2) note that pantothenic aciddeficient rats fail to respond anabolically to growth hormone, while Hazelwood, Bennett, and Nelson (3) have recently reported a reduction in the nitrogen-retaining effect of growth hormone in normal and adrenalectomized pantothenic acid-deficient rats. These observations, and those of Greenbaum (5) and Greenbaum and McLean (6,7) on adult rats, emphasizing the effects of growth hormone on fat metabolism, in which coenzyme A is known to be intimat.ely involved, have prompted us to study coenzyme A concentrations in liver and kidney tissue obtained from rapidly growing immature normal rats, from immature rats in which the growth process has been arrested by hypophysectomy, from normal adult rats, and from animals in the last two groups in which the growth process has been stimulated with growth hormone.