Effects of feeding autoclaved pancreas to depancreatized and ductligated dogs.

I N I~~~APRELIMINARY~~~O~~ (I) wasmade from this laboratory that the feeding of autoclaved beef pancreas was effective in relieving and in preventing fatty infiltration of the liver and other manifestations of lipocaic deficiency in depancreatized dogs and in animals with ligated pancreatic ducts. Autoclaved liver, brain and salivary glands were found to be ineffective under similar conditions. These data indicating that the active principle in pancreas is relatively heat resistant suggests that it can not be trypsin or any of the known pancreatic enzymes. The observation that liver, brain and salivary glands similarly treated are ineffective indicates that the active principle in pancreas is not one of the known lipotropic agents such as choline, methionine or inositol, or a combination of them, since these substances are apparently widespread in animal tissues and are present in liver, brain and salivary glands in amount roughly equivalent to that in pancreas. During the past 3 years additional experiments have been performed which confirm and extend these original observations. salt solution in culture tubes. The absence of digestion or bacterial growth was taken to indicate the absence of enzymatic activity. In more recent experiments weighed portions of thawed fresh pancreas and autoclaved pancreas were homogenized and aliquots incubated for $$ hour at 37°C in a substrate of casein adjusted to PH 7.5, according to the method of Anson. The undigested casein was precipitated with trichloracetic acid and the concentration of split products in the supernatant fluid determined by Folin-Ciocalteau reagent and read on the Evelyn photocolorimeter. A standard curve of tyrosine was set up and the micrograms of tyrosine liberated by the various pancreas samples were read from this curve. Seventeen determinations were made on raw pancreas and an average of 121 & 3.05 pg of tyrosine were liberated/mg of pancreas. Fourteen determinations on pancreas autoclaved for 15 minutes yielded an average of 42.2 =t 3.4 pg of tyrosine/mg of pancreas. Fourteen determinations on pancreas autoclaved for 30 minutes yielded an average of 5.2 h 0.5 pg of tyrosine liberated/mg of pancreas. Twenty-one determinations of pancreas autoclaved for I hour yielded an average of 0.58 =t 0.42 pg of tyrosine liberatedlmg of pancreas.