Short-chain fatty acids in Reye syndrome

✍ Scribed by Enrique Chaves-Carballo

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1978
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 91 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0364-5134
• DOI: 10.1002/ana.410040523

✦ Synopsis

Trauner and her associates [21 have found an interesting correlation benvecn clinical improvement and clearing of short-chain fatty acids in serum from patients with Rcve syndrome. Their results will require confirmation before the role of short-chain fatty acids in Reye syndrome is tlefined.

Unfortunately, the authors did not describe in detail the quantitative methods used in their recent and previous communications [2-61. Most of the methods available for analysis of short-chain fatty acids fail to satisfy the essential requirements of accuracy and reproducibility [ 1 I. Adsorption of short-chain fatty acids to metal and glass surfaces (responsible for "tailing" a d "ghosting" of chromatographic peaks), peak size variability, and poor detector rcsponse are some of the difficulties commonly encountered in gas-liquid chromatography of short-chain fatty acids.

Trauncr and her associates should provide details about the efficiency of vacuum distillation for recovery of shortchain fatty acids from serum, exact conditions used for chromatography, and evidence that the method is accurate and reproducible. This information will not only strengthen the valillity of their data, but will be useful to others who are studying the role of short-chain fatty acitls in Reye syndrome and in other metabolic encephalopathies.