Multifarious Beneficial Effect of Nonessential Amino Acid, Glycine: A Review

Abstract

Glycine is most important and simple, nonessential amino acid in humans, animals, and many mammals. Generally, glycine is synthesized from choline, serine, hydroxyproline, and threonine through interorgan metabolism in which kidneys and liver are the primarily involved. Generally in common feeding conditions, glycine is not sufficiently synthesized in humans, animals, and birds. Glycine acts as precursor for several key metabolites of low molecular weight such as creatine, glutathione, haem, purines, and porphyrins. Glycine is very effective in improving the health and supports the growth and well-being of humans and animals. There are overwhelming reports supporting the role of supplementary glycine in prevention of many diseases and disorders including cancer. Dietary supplementation of proper dose of glycine is effectual in treating metabolic disorders in patients with cardiovascular diseases, several inflammatory diseases, obesity, cancers, and diabetes. Glycine also has the property to enhance the quality of sleep and neurological functions. In this review we will focus on the metabolism of glycine in humans and animals and the recent findings and advances about the beneficial effects and protection of glycine in different disease states.

Glycine improves the remodeling process of tenocytes in vitro

“…Glycine is the predominant amino acid of the triple helix of collagen molecule (Jozsa and Kannus, 1997) being part of the Gly-X-Y motif, that is typical of the alpha-chains of fibrillar collagens. In recent publications, it has been noted that a treatment with glycine can improve the recovery process of the tissue after tendinitis and other inflammatory processes (Carmans et al, 2010;Stoffels et al, 2011;Vieira et al, 2014Vieira et al, , 2015Razak et al, 2017). In fact, glycine exhibits an inhibitory effect on the activity of cytokines such as IL-1b and TNF-a (Hartog et al, 2007;Blancas-Flores et al, 2012;Hasegawa et al, 2012).…”

Plasma Amino Acids During 8 Weeks of Overfeeding: Relation to Diet Body Composition and Fat Cell Size in the PROOF Study

“…In the presence of excess energy and adequate amounts of dietary carbohydrates and minerals, there is no reason to expect mobilization of bone collagen. Glycine is also a biosynthetic intermediate in the formation of porphyrins and purines . The observed increase in glycine at the end of overfeeding could be the result of anaplerosis from the increased fat intake in the group eating the LPD.…”

Multi-omics Analysis at Serum Proteomic and Metabolomic Levels Reveals Mechanisms of Moxibustion for a Mouse Model of Ankylosing Spondylitis

“…Glycine, as a decomposition product by serine, has been revealed to possess anti-in ammatory properties [89]. Thus, lower levels of glycine in serum samples of AS model mice and the depletion is reversed by 4-week moxibustion at speci c acupuncture points, indicating that AS modeling may cause a weaken antiin ammatory properties and acupuncture points' moxibustion therapy has a positive effect in improving this trend.…”