Pancreatic damage produced by injecting excess lysine in rats.

Intraperitoneal injection of lysine (400 mg/100 g body weight) in rats caused necrosis of pancreatic acinar cells with fat necrosis and a significant increase in serum amylase and lipase. The early morphological changes in the pancreas were investigated. At 3 to 6 h, marked swelling of mitochondria was observed throughout the cytoplasm followed later by dilation of the endoplasmic reticulum and the formation of autophagic vacuoles, indicative of rapid cellular degeneration. These results suggest that transient disturbance of energy formation following mitochondrial swelling resulted in disorders of protein metabolism, with disorganization of the endoplasmic reticulum and pyknosis of the nuclei as later events.