Transaminase Activities in Periodontal Tissues in the Guinea Pig

The transaminases, first described by Bran-stein and Kritzman,1 are widely distributed in most animal tissues, plants, and micro-organisms.2-' Among the tissues with the highest con-centration of these enzymes, the skeletal and cardiac muscle, the liver, the kidney, the endometrial mucosa, and the brain have been mentioned.7 They have been reported in dentin8 and dental pulp,9 but they were not found in the ocular tissues, excepting the lens.10 No reference to their presence in periodontal tissues was found. In this paper the transaminase activities of gingiva, periosteum, and periodontium have been compared with those of the liver, kidneys, adrenals, pituitary, and testes in guinea pigs with the object of evaluating their importance in the protein metabolism of these tissues. Materials and Methods The determinations were made with tis-sues of 30 male guinea pigs, weighing 150-200 gm. in pools of three animals each. The animals were fed a balanced diet * of the 41-type, described by Bruce,"1 supple-mented with lettuce. They were deprived of food but not of water during 24 hours before the determinations. To avoid the use of anesthesia, the guinea pigs were stunned and decapitated, and the tissue samples were taken immediately. The samples of periodontal tissues were taken by a previously described technique.12 Gingival samples were obtained in the ves-tibular side of the inferior gingiva by cutting a superficial flap whose limits were the gin