Vitamin D and citrate oxidation.

A relation between vitamin D and citrate metabolism has been clearly established by various investigators, the first of whom was Dickens (l), followed by Nicolaysen and Nordbo (2), Harrison and Harrison (3), Freeman and Chang (4), Waasjo and &g-Larsen (5)) and Carlsson and Hollunger (6). In this laboratory, interest in citrate metabolism was aroused by the finding of citrate lithiasis in rats on low P rachitogenic diets (7, 8). Subsequent investigations revealed that vitamin D increased not only the urinary excretion of citrate (9) but the citrate content of many tissues as well (10). Since these effects were found with a wide range of diets, we became interested in a possible role played by vitamin D in the Krebs citric acid cycle.