Sarcosine metabolism in the rat

Transport and metabolism of sarcosine in hypersarcosinemic and normal phenotypes

“…Because this enzyme is neither active nor inducible in normal human fibroblasts or leukocytes as shown in the present and in previous studies (4, 13), it will not be possible to evaluate the enzymatic basis of the hypersarcosinemic trait further without recourse to organ biopsy. Sarcosine dehydrogenase activity in mammalian tissues is largely restricted to liver and kidney, as shown in the present work and in that of others (13). The failure to ameliorate the hypersarcosinemic phenotype in the proband with pharmacologic doses of folic acid, suggests that the trait in this pedigree at least does not involve a reversible defect in the formation of "activated" formaldehyde from the specific dehydrogenase reaction.…”

“…Significant oxidation of sarcosine was found only in liver and kidney (Table I). When the relative weights of liver and kidney were taken into account, we found that kidney accounts for 10% of total body oxidation of sarcosine in the rat, a value close to that reported for a different strain of rat by Rehberg and Gerritsen (13).…”

“…The efficiency of C02 collecting by this method was 57.7 ±4.9%. Sarcosine dehydrogenase was assayed specifically using methyl-'C-labeled sarcosine as substrate, by the isotope method of Rehberg and Gerritsen (13). Pyruvate dehydrogenase was used as a control assay (14) for cell viability in these studies.…”

Enzyme cytochemical localization of sarcosine oxidase activity in the liver and kidney of several mammals

“…The highest level of activity was found in the Chinese hamster followed by the mouse. In mammals, the latter pathway has been mainly studied (Frisell et al 1965;Hopkins and Bjur 1965;Hopkins and Mackenzie 1961;Rehberg and Gerritsen 1968;Wittwer and Wagner Reaction deposits were observed exclusively in peroxisomes (P), some of which exhibited weak staining. In the metabolic pathway of glycine, SOX converts sarcosine to glycine with concomitant production of formaldehyde and H 2 O 2 .…”