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Journal of Nutrition Vol. 110 No. 1 January 1980, pp. 169-177
Copyright © 1980 by American Society for Nutrition
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Critical Role of Adrenal Glands in Precocious Increase in Jejunal Sucrase Activity Following Premature Weaning in Rats: Negligible Effect of Food Intake1

John T. Boyle and Otakar Koldovsky

Department of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania, and Joseph Stokes Research Institute of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104

The effect on jejunal sucrase activity of premature weaning (PW) of rats is studied and compared with the effect of starvation. Within 24 hours after PW of rats on postnatal day 16 onto a high sucrose diet, there is a highly significant increase in sucrase activity as compared with that in nonseparated controls. During this time, food intake is minimal, the rats lose weight and there is an arrest of jejunal growth. Rats starved from day 16 onward exhibit the same increase of sucrase activity. Adrenalectomy on day 14, i.e. 2 days before PW, results in 33% mortality on the second postweaning day, i.e. on day 18, and in progressive loss of jejunal protein. Sucrase activity in adrenalectomized prematurely-weaned rats does not differ from the activity of intact suckling controls on day 18. Our experiments suggest that the increase in sucrase activity following PW is not related to food intake, but is primarily mediated by the adrenal glands. Presented results stress the importance of the endocrine system in the intestinal "adaptive" response to PW in the rat. Endocrine factors should be considered in any evaluation of the effect of nutritional manipulation during the weaning period.

KEY WORDS: • premature weaning • starvation • jejunum • sucrase • adrenal glands • rats

1 Supported by Grant AM 14531, NIH, Bethesda, MD.

Manuscript received 15 May 1979.




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