Effects of nerve growth factor on the synthesis of amino acids in PC12 cells

The authors examined the effect of fatty acid chain length on the synthesis as well as pool size of selected amino acids in rat pheochromocytoma PC12 cells, a cell culture model of the large glutamate compartment in neurons. NGF pretreatment decreased the intracellular concentration of amino acids as did addition of fatty acids but these effects were not additive. Pretreatment of cells with NGF decreased the specific activity of amino acids by 25-65%. NGF pretreatment decreased the specific activities of glutamate and glutamine, but not of the other 3 amino acids.