Increased urinary excretion of putrescine in hyperargininaemia.

A 4-year-old boy with hyperargininaemia had an increased urinary excretion of putrescine which was exaggerated with oral ornithine supplementation. It seems unlikely that putrescine was overproduced within the gut, because a loading with a single oral dose of ornithine showed that the intestinal ornithine absorption in the patient was normal. An acceleration of extramitochondrial ornithine metabolism due to impaired mitochondrial ornithine uptake may have caused the hyperexcretion of putrescine.