Citrate content of liver and kidney of rat in various metabolic states and in fluoroacetate poisoning.

The citrate content of rat liver changes little when normal rats are starved, when starved rats are re-fed with various diets and when normal animals are made diabetic with alloxan. The citrate content of rat kidney changes little on starvation, but it doubles on induction of diabetes. Fluoroacetate poisoning has relatively little effect on the citrate content of liver under a variety of conditions except that normal female rats show a 2.4-fold increase. Fluoroacetate poisoning leads to increases in the citrate content of kidney under all conditions. The relevance of these observations to the regulation of fatty acid synthesis is discussed. The acetic anhydride-pyridine method and the pentabromoacetone method for the estimation of citrate are compared.