Measuring the Ability of Mice to Sense Dietary Essential Amino Acid Deficiency: The Importance of Amino Acid Status and Timing

The ability to sense and choose appropriate nutrients for survival is a topic of longstanding interest in fields ranging from molecular biology to ecology. Many have contributed to this field, particularly with regard to essential amino acids (EAAs), the precursors for protein synthesis, dating back some 100 years (reviewed in Anthony and Gietzen, 2013). A recent report (Leib and Knight, 2015) challenges previous independent but common findings on the sensing of EAA-deficient diets by rodents, including food intake and neurochemical reports over 30 years (see Koehnle et al., 2004).