Arginine metabolism and nutrition in growth, health and disease

Abstract

L-Arginine (Arg) is synthesised from glutamine, glutamate, and proline via the intestinal-renal axis in humans and most other mammals (including pigs, sheep and rats). Arg degradation occurs via multiple pathways that are initiated by arginase, nitric-oxide synthase, Arg:glycine amidinotransferase, and Arg decarboxylase. These pathways produce nitric oxide, polyamines, proline, glutamate, creatine, and agmatine with each having enormous biological importance. Arg is also required for the detoxification of ammonia, which is an extremely toxic substance for the central nervous system. There is compelling evidence that Arg regulates interorgan metabolism of energy substrates and the function of multiple organs. The results of both experimental and clinical studies indicate that Arg is a nutritionally essential amino acid (AA) for spermatogenesis, embryonic survival, fetal and neonatal growth, as well as maintenance of vascular tone and hemodynamics. Moreover, a growing body of evidence clearly indicates that dietary supplementation or intravenous administration of Arg is beneficial in improving reproductive, cardiovascular, pulmonary, renal, gastrointestinal, liver and immune functions, as well as facilitating wound healing, enhancing insulin

The effect of arginine dietary supplementation in broiler breeder hens on offspring humoral and cell-mediated immune responses

“…Arginine acts as a potent modulator of phagocytosis mediated by macrophages through the synthesis of NO (Hibbs et al, 1987;Amber et al, 1991;Tsai et al, 2002), which stimulates local vasodilation and promotes tissue repair (Bredt and Snyder, 1994). Arginine is also one of the factors required for the differentiation and release of B lymphocytes from the bone marrow (Jonge et al, 2002) and has a stimulatory effect on the production and activity of cytokines and other immune system cells (Ochoa et al, 2001;Wu et al, 2009).…”

Homoarginine, arginine, and relatives: analysis, metabolism, transport, physiology, and pathology

“…Interestingly, acute and long-term oral administration of Arg has different effects with respect to hArg and ADMA than acute intravenous administration of high doses of Arg. Benefits from pharmacological or supplemental use of Arg are expected to be more than enhancement of NO synthesis by increasing the substrate availability of Arg (Wu et al 2009). Potential benefits of oral administration of Arg could be saving nitrite bioavailability due to improved reabsorption of nitrite in the proximal tubule of the nephron (Schneider et al 2015), as nitrite is the major NO reservoir (Gladwin et al 2006), and due to enhanced hArg biosynthesis in comparison to ADMA (Kayacelebi et al 2015b).…”

Identification and expression analysis of <i>miR-144-5p</i> and <i>miR-130b-5p</i> in dairy cattle

“…Another important pathway including six target genes is arginine and proline metabolism, which is known to be closely involved in conceptus metabolism (Wu et al, 2008), growth and development. It is also a potential treatment for intrauterine growth restriction (Wu et al, 2009), which is a significant problem in both human medicine and animal agriculture. Four of them belonged to the mRNA surveillance pathway, which assesses the quality of mRNAs to ensure that they are suitable for translation (Vasudevan et al, 2002).…”