75Se-Selenomethionine in the Study of Protein and Amino Acid Metabolism of Adult Rats

Abstract

There is abundant evidence that selenomethionine is an analogue of methionine. We have utilized whole-body counting of 75Se after the administration of 75Se-selenomethionine to determine whether this technique might be used to evaluate overall changes in protein metabolism in animals fed different amounts of protein or methionine. Changes in overall body counts were not sensitive to changes in these dietary variables, but the excretion of 75Se was greatly affected by the selenium content of the diet. Thus, whole-body counting is apparently not a useful technique for following the metabolism of tissue proteins.