Influence of dietary arginine on sexual dimorphism of arginine metabolism in mice.

We have studied the influence of dietary arginine on tissue arginine content, and arginine metabolism in CD1 mice. Dietary arginine restriction produced by feeding mice with a low arginine diet (0.06%) produced a marked decrease in arginine concentrations in the plasma, skeletal muscle and kidney of female mice (72%, 67% and 54%, respectively) while in male mice the decreases were smaller (58% in blood and 18% in the skeletal muscle). This diet abolished not only the sexual dimorphism in arginine content observed in mice fed with the diet containing 1% arginine, but also reduced renal activities of arginase and nitric oxide synthase in the female mice and ornithine decarboxylase and the decarboxylation of arginine in the male mice. Urinary putrescine excretion was dramatically reduced by arginine restriction in the male mice whereas orotic acid excretion increased about 30 fold in both sexes; urea and creatinine excretion did not change. Taken together our results indicate that dietary arginine plays a relevant role in the maintenance of the sexual dimorphism in arginine content and arginine metabolism in CD1 mice, and that this may have physiological significance because of the important effects that arginine-derived products exert on a variety of cellular processes.