ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the pathways of glutamine metabolism in lymphocytes and macrophages and the changes in glutamine utilization that occur when these cells are exposed to an antigenic stimulus. It reviews the central position that the immune system occupies in interorgan glutamine metabolism during normal and catabolic states. The chapter discusses the effects of glutamine-enriched nutrition on the immune system, in particular on the immunology of the gut. Glutamine is a key metabolic substrate for the proliferation of rapidly dividing cells such as lymphocytes and enterocytes. The hypothesis generated by the studies reviewed in this chapter proposes that the altered glutamine metabolism that occurs during sepsis and other catabolic disease states may lead to derangements in cell function. These impairments may be due in part to a relative deficiency in glutamine which may decrease glutamine availability to cells.
