An effect of dietary sulfur on liver inorganic sulfate in the rat.

The effect of dietary sulfur on liver inorganic sulfate concentration was determined by feeding rats diets containing 0.0002, 0.02, 0.1 and 0.42% of inorganic sulfate for a period of 17 days. Each diet contained 15% of casein supplemented with decreasing levels of methionine as the dietary inorganic sulfate was increased, to keep the sulfur as sulfate concentration constant at 0.67%. The molarity of the liver sulfate calculated on the basis of moles of sulfate per 1,000 g of wet tissue was 0.98, 1.3, 2.2 and 1.5 mM for rats fed the diets containing 0.0002, 0.02, 0.1 and 0.42% of inorganic sulfate, respectively. Thus it appears that the liver sulfate pool is limited by a combination of the rate of oxidation of the sulfur-containing amino acids and the extraction of sulfate from the portal system.