A Study of the Metabolism of 4-Amino-5-Imidazolecarboxamide (AIC) in Folic Acid Deficiency in Rats

Abstract

IT is well known that folic acid deficiency is an important and fairly common cause of macrocytic anemia. At the present time, clinical states of folic acid deficiency can be studied by two laboratory methods. One method involves direct determination of the concentration of folic acid in the serum, by bacteriologic and other technics that are cumbersome and not fully reliable. The other method involves determination of the urinary excretion of formiminoglutamic acid (figlu), a metabolite of the amino acid, histidine, which requires folic acid for its catabolism. This latter method lacks the desired specificity for detecting folic acid deficiency, and it has been reported¹ that the test is often positive also in B₁₂ deficiency and in chronic disease of the liver.