AIN-93 Purified Diets for Laboratory Rodents: Final Report of the American Institute of Nutrition Ad Hoc Writing Committee on the Reformulation of the AIN-76A Rodent Diet
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Abstract
For sixteen years, the American Institute of Nutrition Rodent Diets, AIN-76 and AIN-76A,
have been used extensively around the world. Because of numerous nutritional and technical
problems encountered with the diet during this period, it was revised. Two new formulations
were derived: AIN-93G for growth, pregnancy and lactation, and AIN-93M for adult maintenance.
Some major differences in the new formulation of AIN-93G compared with AIN-76A are
as follows: 7 g soybean oil/100 g diet was substituted for 5 g corn oil/100 g diet
to increase the amount of linolenic acid; cornstarch was substituted for sucrose;
the amount of phosphorus was reduced to help eliminate the problem of kidney calcification
in female rats; L-cystine was substituted for DL-methionine as the amino acid supplement
for casein, known to be deficient in the sulfur amino acids; manganese concentration
was lowered to one-fifth the amount in the old diet; the amounts of vitamin E, vitamin
K and vitamin B-12 were increased; and molybdenum, silicon, fluoride, nickel, boron,
lithium and vanadium were added to the mineral mix. For the AIN-93M maintenance diet,
the amount of fat was lowered to 40 g/kg diet from 70 g/kg diet, and the amount of
casein to 140 g/kg from 200 g/kg in the AIN-93G diet. Because of a better balance
of essential nutrients, the AIN-93 diets may prove to be a better choice than AIN-76A
for long-term as well as short-term studies with laboratory rodents.