Figure 4

Methylmalonic acid concentration by tissue type over time. (A) MMA concentrations expressed as nmol per gram of tissue. The values are averages from prenatal [embryonic day 19] (N = 3), neonatal [8–12 hour] (N = 3), and metabolic crisis [20–24 hour] (N = 2) mutant animals. Values for age-matched control littermates (N = 2) for each time point are not depicted on this graph but were used to plot the fold change, depicted in additional file 4. The error bars surround the standard deviation for the prenatal time point and the range observed at the stage of metabolic crisis. p-values for the mutant versus age matched controls were <0.01 for all tissues. An asterisk * designates a significant p-value. In the mutants, the MMA content of the liver at 24 hours was significantly greater than skeletal muscle (p = 0.002 at 8 hours, p = 0.05 at 24 hours), brain (p = 0.002 at 8 hours, p = 0.0016 at 24 hours), or kidney (p = 0.0023 at 8 hours, p = 0.0072 at 24 hours). However, only the difference between the liver samples at the 24-hour time point and other tissues at the 8 and 24-hour time points were significant with a p-value less than 0.05.