Nutritional efficiency of succinic acid and glutamic acid dimethyl esters in colon carcinoma cells.

The dimethyl esters of succinic acid (SAD) and glutamic acid (GME) were found to be efficiently metabolized in colon carcinoma cells of the Caco-2 line. The rate of [1,4-14C]SAD and [2,3-14C]SAD conversion to radioactive acidic metabolites, CO2, amino acids, pyruvic acid, and lactic acid suggested that the catabolism of the ester-derived succinic acid occurred mainly through the sequence of reactions catalyzed by succinate dehydrogenase, fumarase, and the malic enzyme. This coincided with a marked sparing action of SAD on the utilization of D-[2-(3)H]glucose and D-[5-(3)H]glucose and generation of 14C-labeled acid metabolites, CO2, and lactic acid from D-[U-14C]glucose by the enterocytes. Likewise, the conversion of [U-14C]GME to 14C-labeled amino acids, its oxidation compared with that of [1-(14)C]GME, and the production of NH4+ in the absence or presence of GME indicated efficient catabolism of the latter ester. Like SAD, GME decreased the utilization of D-[5-(3)H]glucose and generation of 14C-labeled acidic metabolites, pyruvate, and CO2 from D-[6-(14)C]glucose, while increasing the generation of 14C-labeled amino acids from the labeled hexose. The oxidation of D-[6-(14)C]glucose was even more severely inhibited by GME. In normal rat intestinal cells, SAM, SAD, and GME also exerted a marked sparing action on D-[U-14C]glucose oxidation. The present findings suggest, therefore, that these esters could possibly be used to sustain ATP generation in intestinal cells.