Berberine attenuates impairment of intestinal glutamine transport in sepsis / 肠外与肠内营养

ABSTRACT

Objective: A marked deficiency of glutamine in clinical critical illness is correlated with mortality in the intensive care unit, and intestinal glutamine transport was reported to be impaired in late sepsis. Berberine was reported to protect against the intestine injury, and improve the survival rate in sepsis. We designed this study to gain further knowledge of the intestinal glutamine transport in early and late sepsis, and to find out whether beberine pretreatment has some effect on glutamine transport in sepsis. Methods: Berberine (50 mg/kg) was given intragastrically once a day for 5 days, and sepsis was induced by cecal ligation and puncture on day 5. The small intestinal samples were collected at 0, 2, 6, 12, 24 h. Intestinal brush border membrane vesicles were prepared by Mg~(2+) aggregation-differential centrifugation techniques, and brush border glutamine transport was studied by a rapid filtration technique. Results: Under control condition, Na~+-dependent glutamine transport accounted for about 90% of the total transport. The relative contributions of ATA2, ATB~(0,+), B~0AT1 were about 12, 25, 63%, respectively. Septic rats showed an early increase and a late decrease in intestinal glutamine transport. ATA2 had an earlier increase in the early stage, while B0AT1 had no significant increase. Berberine pretreated group had a relative less increase in early phase and a less decrease in late phase compared to sepsis group. Conclusion: Rat intestinal glutamine transport showed an early increase and a late decrease in sepsis, and berberine pretreatment could attenuate the impairment of glutamine transport in sepsis. It may provide some information for sepsis treatment.