Effect of Glutamic Acid on Chick’s Proline Requirement

Abstract

PROLINE has been considered by nutritionists as a nonessential amino acid for chicks. Its relative abundance in natural proteins made it difficult to determine its role in chick nutrition. Almquist and Grau (1944) fed a purified diet with and without proline to groups off our chicks. They observed that the birds receiving proline showed an immediate gain in weight, whereas those without it showed a reduced growth rate for four days, but after that time they grew at the normal rate. They classified proline as a dispensable amino acid, but reported that there might be conditions under which the chick did not synthesize it rapidly enough for maximum growth. Benton et al. (1955) reported that when 1% l-proline was added to an amino acid diet containing 0.5% l-proline, there was a very small growth response. Roy and Bird (1959) observed that the addition of 0.5 to 2% l-proline to the…