Claude Godin

Phenylketonuria in rats: a model for biochemical studies.

Polidora, Cunningham and Waisman1 reported that induced phenylketonuria (PKU) in rats does not adequately simulate the irreversible intellectual impairments found in the phenylketonuric child, although they point out that there is somewhat general agreement in the literature that this technique provides an adequate model of PKU for biochemical studies. The results of our experiments on the metabolism of phenylalanine in normal and PKU rats suggest, however, that even from the biochemical point of view there is no adequate simulation of impairments in the phenylketonuric child.