Influence of Homocysteine on Metabolic Processes in Biological Systems

The study is devoted to determining the level of homocysteine in mammals and determining the extent of its influence on metabolic processes.Homocysteine is a sulfur-containing non-proteinogenic amino acid that is formed as a result of the oxidation-reduction metabolism of methionine.Homocysteine metabolism includes transmethylation, remethylation, and transsulfation reactions.When metabolism is disrupted, homocysteine formation increases, which leads to hyperhomocysteinemia.In this work, homocysteine levels were determined in rats with experimental heart failure and experimental chronic kidney disease in rats.Chronic heart failure was modeled by intraperitoneal administration of phenylephrine for 28 days.Chronic kidney disease was modeled by 5/6 nephrectomy.The residual kidney resection model was performed in two sessions under 2 % isoflurane anesthesia: during the first week, approximately 2/3 of the left kidney was removed from the rats, and during the second week, the entire right kidney was removed.The level of homocysteine, creatinine, urea, potassium, sodium, chlorine ions, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, lactate dehydrogenase activity were determined in the blood 2 and 6 months after pathology modeling.Based on the results of the studies, it was established that an increase in homocysteine levels is observed in a number of pathologies, such as chronic heart failure and chronic kidney disease.An increase in the concentration of homocysteine in the blood plasma was revealed as the pathology progressed.The level of homocysteine in plasma correlates with the level of creatinine and urea and is absolutely not associated with the level of sodium, potassium, chloride ions and the activity of metabolic enzymes.The results of the study allow us to recommend measuring the concentration of homocysteine in plasma to determine the degree of metabolic disorders.