Glutamine is the most abundant free alpha-AA in the mammalian body, and large amounts of glutamine are extracted by both the fetus during pregnancy and the mammary gland during lactation. The work presented here addressed the hypothesis that there would be major changes in glutamine metabolism in the mare during the transition period, the time between late gestation, parturition, and early lact...

Regulation of hexose transport in NIL hamster fibroblasts has been studied in confluent cultures preconditioned for 24 hr in media deprived of glutamine or of serum or of both. Cultures maintained in media containing dialyzed fetal calf serum and 4 mM glutamine accumulated up to 72 nmol of glutamine per mg of cell protein; in contrast, cells deprived of glutamine contained less than 1 nmol/mg o...

The effects of therapy with glutamine and alanyl-glutamine on diarrhea and antiretroviral drug levels in patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) were examined in a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study in northeast Brazil. Patients with AIDS and with diarrhea and/or wasting were randomized into 4 groups to determine the efficacy of glutamine or high- or low-dose ...

Glutamine, a conditionally essential amino acid, is consumed predominantly in the gastrointestinal tract as a source of energy, particularly under the conditions of trauma, sepsis and surgery. In this article, we discuss the unique role of glutamine in the preservation of epithelial barrier function in the gastrointestinal tract. Glutamine supplementation protects the gastrointestinal mucosal h...

stimulates glutamine release at the expense of tissue glutamate while decreasing or having little effect on alanine release (Ruderman & Lund, 1972; Chang & Goldberg, 1978). In the perfused rat hindlimb total glutamine production by resting muscle is over 4-fold greater than ammonia production, but the addition of methionine sulphoximine (a glutamine synthetase inhibitor) reverses this pattern (...

We have examined three mutants of Klebsiella aerogenes whose genetic lesions (glnB, glnD, and glnE) are in loci unlinked to the structural gene for glutamine sythetase (glnA) and in which the control of both the level and state of adenylylation of glutamine synthetase is altered. Each mutation alters a different component of the adenylylation system of glutamine synthetase [L-glutamate:ammonia ...

The capacity of rat neutrophils to utilize glutamine was investigated by 1) determination of oxygen consumption in the presence of glucose or glutamine, 2) measurement of maximal activity of phosphate-dependent glutaminase, 3) Northern blot, Western blot, and immunocytochemical detection of glutaminase, and 4) measurement of glutamine utilization and also production of ammonia, glutamate, aspar...

Recent studies highlight the importance of glutamine metabolism in metabolic reprogramming, which underlies cancer cell addiction to glutamine. Examples for the dependence on glutamine metabolism are seen across different tumor types as during different phases of cancer development, progression and response to therapy. In this perspective, we assess the possibility of targeting glutamine metabo...

The structural gene for glutamine synthetase, glnA, from Amycolatopsis mediterranei U32 was cloned via screening a genomic library using the analog gene from Streptomyces coelicolor. The clone was functionally verified by complementing for glutamine requirement of an Escherichia coli glnA null mutant under the control of a lac promoter. Sequence analysis showed an open reading frame encoding a ...