The synthesis and degradation of citric acid by ventral prostate tissue. I. Enzymatic mechanisms.

Large amounts of citric acid are present in certain secondary sexual organs of the adult male rat, notably the ventral prostate gland. The elegant investigations of Mann and his collaborators (l-3) have established that citrate accumulation in this tissue is clearly controlled by androgenic hormones, a conclusion which is particularly well illustrated by the finding of high concentrations of citric acid in the prostate glands of female animals to which androgens have been administered (4). Nyden and WilliamsAshman (5) have shown that the respiration-coupled synthesis of long chain fatty acids from acetate-l-Cl4 by ventral prostate slices is extremely sensitive to androgens; the process is severely impaired soon after orchiectomy and can be restored to normal by the adminiskation of testosterone propionate. The fact that lipogenesis from acetate and also citric acid synthesis involve the common intermediate acetyl CoA’ (6-8) and are both profoundly influenced by androgenic hormones in the ventral prostate suggested a detailed analysis of citric acid formation and degradation in this tissue. Barron and Huggins (9) found that slices of human and canine prostate will synthesize kitrate from added pyruvate and fumarate. The fact that added citrate was barely utilized by such preparations led them and others (10) to believe that the tricarboxylic acid cycle was absent from this tissue. From a study of the rate of entry of Cl4 into citrate and succinate in ventral prostate slices respiring in the presence of acetate-l-C14, Rudolph and Starnes (11) have concluded that succinate may be formed from acetate in this tissue by a pathway which does not involve the intermediate forma-