QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Ortega, M. A. Articles by Sánchez-Pozo, A. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Ortega, M. A. Articles by Sánchez-Pozo, A.

Dietary Nucleotides Accelerate Intestinal Recovery after Food Deprivation in Old Rats^1,2,

María A. Ortega, María C. Nunz^*, Angel Gil and Antonio Sánchez-Pozo³

Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Granada, Granada 18071, Spain ^* Research Department of Puleva, Granada 18004, Spain

Previous studies in very young rats have shown that dietary nucleotides improve small intestine repair after injury or malnutrition. To investigate the potential effect of nucleotides in old rats, which have a diminished capability for intestinal repair, 17-mo-old rats were deprived of food for 5 d and then fed a nucleotide-free diet or a nucleotide-supplemented diet for 3 or 6 d. Intestinal jejunal and ileal mucosal weight, protein and DNA were evaluated as intestinal growth markers, and brush-border maltase, sucrase, lactase and aminopeptidase activities were evaluated as intestinal differentiation markers. The adenine nucleotide pool and the adenylate energy charge were also evaluated as indices of nucleotide availability. Food deprivation significantly decreased mucosal growth markers as well as differentiation markers in both jejunum and ileum. The ATP pool was also significantly depressed, but the adenylate energy charge was not significantly altered. To a certain extent, refeeding restored the losses, but in the rats that were fed the nucleotide-free diet, the restoration of the jejunum was significantly slower and the restoration of the ileum differentiation markers was incomplete compared with the rats fed the nucleotide-supplemented diet. The results suggest that dietary nucleotide intake in the elderly may accelerate the normal physiological intestinal response to refeeding after food deprivation.

KEY WORDS: • dietary nucleotides • small intestine • food deprivation • rats

¹ Supported by grants from CICYT (Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia) and Puleva, Spain.

² The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 USC section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

³ To whom correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed.

Manuscript received 11 July 1994. Revision accepted 16 November 1994.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				F. Rodriguez-Serrano, J. A. Marchal, A. Rios, A. Martinez-Amat, H. Boulaiz, J. Prados, M. Peran, O. Caba, E. Carrillo, F. Hita, et al. Exogenous Nucleosides Modulate Proliferation of Rat Intestinal Epithelial IEC-6 Cells J. Nutr., April 1, 2007; 137(4): 879 - 884. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]