Hyperargininemia: the rat as a model for the human disease and the comparative response to enzyme replacement therapy with free arginase and arginase-loaded erythrocytes in vivo.

Rat erythrocytes lack arginase as do the erythrocytes of human homozygote patients with hyperargininemia due to arginase deficiency. The rat has physiological liver arginase activity and plasma arginine and ornithine levels between the homozygotes and the heterozygotes with hyperargininemia. In rats, one injection of free arginase induces a transient exogenous arginase effect which is abolished after 24 hr. One injection of isoionic arginase-loaded erythrocytes provokes an exogenous arginase effect in physiological "hyperargininemic" rats and pathological "hyperargininemic"-made rats for at least 8 and 5 days respectively. The very transient response in vivo to exogenous free arginase can be considerably prolonged by entrapment of the arginase in isoionic prepared erythrocytes.