Hello everybody,

I've done some literature search on alanine metabolism. I always found it as some kind of "garbage can" for ammonia in cells other than hepatocytes (like in the physiological glucose-alanine cycle between muscle and liver).

Now I wonder if there is another function for alanine biosynthesis beside depleting ammonia from the cell or for simple protein synthesis. Furthermore, I would like to know if there is evidence for other alanine biosynthesis pathways beside glutamate-pyruvate transamination by GPT/ALT in animal cells (I found at least three in E.coli).  

Does anybody know some literature or is perhabs an expert on his/her own in this topic?

Thanks a lot,

Maren