Influence of pantothenic acid deficiency on the viability and growth of a rat fibrosarcoma.

INTRODUCTION It has been reported by Morris et at. (6, 7) that dietary pantothenic acid deficiency retarded the growth of spontaneous mammary tumors in mice (C3H strain). This result is in contrast to the find ings of Bischoff et a!. (@) who found no retardation of growth of Sarcoma 180 transplanted into Marsh-Buffalo mice on a similar pantothenic acid deficient diet. Although different tumors and dif ferent strains of mice were used, the latter authors suggested that their negative results might be owing to failure to deplete the endogenous stores of pantothenic acid. The present experiment was designed to test the effect on the growth of a rat fibrosarcoma of a diet deficient in pantothenic acid, as well as that of an anti-metabolite of this vitamin, os-methyl pantothenic acid (3).