Substitution of -Keto Acids for Five Amino Acids Essential for Growth of the Rat.

Young rats grew slowly on a diet in which the nitrogen was furnished exclusively by the 10 amino acids essential to the young rat plus glutamic acid. When leucine, isoleucine, valine, phenylalanine, and methionine were replaced in the diet by the corresponding keto acids plus an equivalent amount of nitrogen as glycine and 0.2% aspartic acid, the animals grew as well as they did on the basal diet.