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* U.S. Department of Agriculture/ARS Childrens Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, and
Division of Animal Nutrition, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, DK-1870 Frederiksberg C, Copenhagen, Denmark
3To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: dburrin{at}bcm.tmc.edu.
| ABSTRACT |
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KEY WORDS: cell proliferation apoptosis gut hormone enteral nutrition blood flow nitric oxide
Glucagon-like peptide 2 (GLP-2)3 is a member of the glucagon superfamily of peptide hormones produced mainly in the gastrointestinal tract, but also in the central and peripheral nervous system of mammals (1). GLP-2 is produced from the posttranslational processing of the proglucagon gene expressed in the enteroendocrine L-cell located primarily in the distal intestine and nucleus tractus solitarius region of the brain (2,3). GLP-2 is secreted into the blood as a 33-amino acid peptide in response to direct enteral nutrient stimulation of L-cells and indirect action from enteroendocrine and neural inputs, including gastric inhibitory peptide, gastrin-releasing peptide and the vagus nerve (1). The biological activity of GLP-2 in circulation is significantly influenced by the rapid N-terminus cleavage by dipeptidylpeptidase IV from its full-length (GLP-2, 133) peptide form to a relatively inactive truncated form (GLP-2, 333).
In recent years, there has been increasing interest in GLP-2 and its potential physiological role in intestinal adaptation, since the studies by Drucker and others first showed that GLP-2 is a potent intestinal trophic peptide (4). A number of subsequent studies have explored the effects of GLP-2 in various models of intestinal adaptation (2,3). The focus of this symposium was on the significance of GLP-2 in the clinical condition, short-bowel syndrome and the potential role of GLP-2 as a trophic signal between enteral nutrition and intestinal adaptation. The other contributors to this symposium highlight the historical development of GLP-2 (5), the cellular and molecular mechanisms of action of GLP-2 (6), its relationship with SCFA-mediated intestinal growth (7) and the clinical implications of GLP-2 in short-bowel patients (8). The focus of the current paper is to review a series of studies in young developing piglets in order to examine whether GLP-2 is indeed a hormonal signal that mediates at least part of the intestinal trophic response associated with enteral nutrition.
| Enteral nutrition, gut growth and GLP-2 secretion |
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Using the same piglet model, we next set out to determine the relative intestinal trophic effect of the main macronutrient components in our elemental diet and investigated whether the response is correlated with plasma GLP-2 concentration. In vivo studies in adult humans indicate that carbohydrate and fat are more potent GLP-2 secretagogues than protein (10,11). To test this, we used the same elemental diet as in our previous study (9), but provided only the amino acid, carbohydrate or lipid component as the sole enteral nutrient via intragastric infusion, while providing the other two macronutrients via an intravenous infusion. We also kept the relative proportions of the three macronutrients the same; carbohydrate, amino acids and lipid were 44, 33 and 23% of the total caloric intake. We found that the trophic effects of the three macronutrients are ranked accordingly, carbohydrate > amino acids > lipid, based on measurements of intestinal weight as an endpoint (12). Moreover, we found that the rank order of the plasma GLP-2 concentrations is similar to intestinal weight, being greatest for carbohydrate > amino acid > lipid. Therefore, not only is the level of enteral intake correlated to the circulating GLP-2 concentration and intestinal growth, but enteral intake of the specific macronutrients also produces similar relative changes in plasma GLP-2 and intestinal growth.
| Stage of development |
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| Intestinal responsiveness to GLP-2 dose |
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150200 pmol/L, low dose) and a supraphysiological range (
350 pmol/L, medium dose and
750 pmol/L, high dose). Analysis of the results using linear regression showed that most endpoints of intestinal growth are dose-dependently increased by GLP-2. Moreover, regression analysis found that measures of intestinal mass are also highly related (R2 = 0.78) to circulating GLP-2 concentration. However, when we used a means comparison test, we found that the lowest GLP-2 dose (i.e., within the physiological range) has no significant effect on any measure of intestinal growth when compared to TPN alone. These findings show the remarkable responsiveness of the neonatal small intestine to pharmacological increases in the circulating GLP-2 concentration, yet they raise doubt as to whether GLP-2 has a trophic effect under physiological conditions. On the other hand, it is possible that the physiological circulating GLP-2 concentrations that we acheived in TPN-fed piglets do not reproduce the local tissue concentration, which occurs with enteral feeding pehaps due to the high activity of dipeptidylpeptidase IV enzyme. Thus, under the conditions of TPN, affecting the local tissue concentration and stimulating a trophic effect may require a higher plasma level of GLP-2 than what otherwise might occur during enteral feeding. | Acute responsiveness to enteral nutrition and GLP-2 |
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What has not been evident from the coincident changes observed in plasma GLP-2 and intestinal metabolism after enteral feeding is the acute nutrient-independent intestinal responsiveness to GLP-2. To investigate this question, we measured the acute changes in intestinal blood flow and substrate metabolism in TPN-fed piglets during a short-term (4-h) intravenous infusion of a pharmacological GLP-2 dose (30). During GLP-2 infusion, we observed a rapid (within 10 min) upregulation of portal blood flow that peaked after 45 min and plateaued at
25% above the saline baseline. We also found that GLP-2 treatment increased portal glucose uptake (+90%) and protein synthesis (+125%) during the 4-h infusion. More intriguing, however, was the observation that GLP-2 increased the jejunal constitutive nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity and protein abundance of endothelial NOS. Subsequent experiments showed that coinfusion with the NOS-inhibitor, L-nitro-arginine methyl ester, completely blocked the GLP-2-stimulation of portal blood flow and glucose uptake suggesting that these effects occur via a nitric-oxide dependent mechanism. These findings indicate that key metabolic functions, which are closely linked to and precede changes in intestinal growth, are rapidly increased in response to increased circulating GLP-2 and this occurs in the absence of luminal nutrients. Yet more importantly, the results implicate nitric oxide as a possible signaling molecule in GLP-2 receptor function and may provide clues as to the precise cellular localization of the receptor, which has been the subject of conflicting reports (31,32). The evidence to date on GLP-2R function suggests that downstream secondary mediators are involved in a heterotypic cellular mechanism of action. This is based on reports of its localization in human enteroendocrine cells and murine enteric neurons, whereas the changes in cellular function in response to GLP-2 have been confined largely to other intestinal cell types (e.g., stimulating crypt cell proliferation and inhibiting enterocyte apoptosis). We speculate that GLP-2 interacts with its receptor on target cells to stimulate endogenous synthesis of NO via constitutive NOS, which in turn upregulates blood flow and substrate utilization necessary for cell growth and proliferation (Fig. 2).
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| CONCLUSIONS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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2 This work was supported by federal funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service under Cooperative Agreement Number 586250-6001 and from the National Institutes of Health Grant HD33920 (D.G.B.). The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. ![]()
4 Abbreviations used: GLP-2, glucagon-like peptide 2; NOS, nitric oxide synthase; TPN, total parenteral nutrition. ![]()
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