Effect of starvation on the N-acetylglutamate system of rat liver.

Rats fasted for 3 and 6 days showed an increase in the activity, per g of liver but not per total liver, of the mitochondrial urea cycle enzymes, carbamylphosphate synthetase and ornithine transcarbamylase. The activity of N-acetylglutamate synthetase, both per g and per total liver, increased by the third day and then decreased on the sixth day of fasting. The cytosolic enzyme N-acetyldeacylase showed the same general pattern as the N-acetylglutamate synthetase except that the relative proportion of synthetase over deacylase was higher at the third day of starvation. The N-acetylglutamate level/g liver increases in relation to the number of days of fasting.