Poly saccharide formation in repair tissue during ascorbic acid deficiency.

Formation of a normal fibrous repair tissue requires ascorbic acid, for in the absence of this vitamin a tissue proliferates lacking the fibrillar elements which contribute to tensile strength (1). Chemical analyses have shown that the massive repair tissue induced by the subcutaneous injection of a foreign body, the galactan carrageenan, contained very little collagen when the animals received a diet deficient in ascorbic acid (2). This tissue had a higher water content than repair tissue from adequately fed guinea pigs and, when minced, exuded appreciable amounts of a viscid, mutinous fluid. A preliminary comparison of this fluid with the scanty serous exudate which appeared when normal repair tissue was minced showed that the former contained greater amounts of mucopolysaccharides. The increased interest in connective tissue polysaccharides during recent years has prompted several investigations of the changes in these compounds during scurvy. Penney and Balfour (3) concluded, on the basis of metachromatic staining reactions, that acid mucopolysaccharides did not appear in muscle wounds of scorbutic guinea pigs, whereas Bunting and White (4), using similar techniques, reported that mucopolysaccharides were more abundant than normal in skin wounds of scorbutic guinea pigs. Persson (5) found that sections of various scorbutic tissues contained more hexosamine and yielded more intensive polysaccharide staining than the comparable normal tissues. Gersh and Catchpole (6) interpreted their observations as indicating a depolymerization of glycoproteins during scurvy, but did not consider the effect of scurvy on concentration. Ludwig (7) stimulated new connective tissue formation in normal and scorbutic guinea pigs by inducing exophthalmos. The retrobulbar tissue increased in both groups and there was no difference in hexosamine content. Kodicek and Loewi (S), in a recent publication, reported that the hexosamine content of repair tissue from tendons of normal and scorbutic guinea pigs was similar. Dunphy and Udupa (9) have referred to the increased mucopoly-