Serotonin in experimental histidinemia.

An experimental histidinemia was obtained in rats by in vivo administration of nitromethane, a histidase inhibitor. The magnitude of increase in plasma histidine in the nitromethane-treated rats was in the same range as that in the histidinemic subjects. No modifications were observed in the serotonin concentrations in blood or in various areas of brain between the nitromethane-treated rats and the control rats. No dramatic modifications of serotonin metabolism seem to be implicated in histidinemia, unlike phenylketonuria.