In Vitro Cytotoxicity of Amino Acids and Their Glycyl-Dipeptide Forms to Human Peritoneal Mesothelial Cells

Amino acids have been proposed as an alternative to glucose osmotic solutes in peritoneal dialysis solution to avoid the undesirable effects attributed to glucose absorption and to provide nutrition to uremic patients ( 1). Supplementation of amino acids via the peritoneum appeared to be beneficial in malnourished patients (2). However, in our previous in vitra studies on mesothelial cells we found that amino acids, when used in concentrations as high as those present in the unused dialysis fluid, are cytotoxic (3). Dipeptides containing glycine can be used as an alternative to amino acids in fluids for parenteral nutrition (4). We present results fromin vitra experiments on human mesothelial cells where we compared the cytotoxicity of the individual amino acids and their respective glycyl-dipeptide forms.