[Activity of proteases, leucine arylamidase and alpha-amylase in pancreatic tissue during nickel deficiency].

In studies on the essentiality of nickel, important differences of enzyme activities and also of substrates were established. The results of the present paper show that these changes cannot be explained by a lowered reduction of dietary proteins, since the activity of the proteases rather increased during Ni deficiency. However, the digestion of the starch by alpha-amylase, being 57% lower, could have been partially responsible for the large differences in the activities of the hepatic enzymes and in the concentrations of the hepatic metabolites and also in the weight gains.