Purine nucleoside transport and metabolism in isolated rat jejunum.

1. The absorption and metabolism of purine nucleosides and their constituent bases has been investigated by perfusion through the lumen of isolated loops of rat jejunum. In control perfusions and those with luminal purines or purine nucleosides, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) revealed uric acid as the only detectable purine in the mucosal epithelial layer and the serosal secretions unless the xanthine oxidase inhibitor allopurinol was present. 2. Adenosine (0.5 mM) was quantitatively deaminated to inosine in the lumen after perfusion for 30 min. 3. Luminal inosine and hypoxanthine (0.15-1.0 mM) increased the serosal uric acid concentration significantly (P < 0.001); at 0.5 and 1.0 mM the nucleoside gave a significantly greater (P < 0.01) rate of serosal uric acid appearance than the base. 4. Luminal guanosine (0.05-0.50 mM) and guanine (0.05-0.15 mM) increased the serosal uric acid concentration significantly (P < 0.001); with 0.15 mM nucleoside the serosal uric acid appeared significantly faster (P < 0.01) than it did from the base. 5. Luminal allopurinol (0.3 mM) inhibited xanthine oxidase by 80% and reduced serosal purine appearance significantly (P < 0.01) from luminal guanine, hypoxanthine and inosine. With allopurinol, guanosine (0.1 and 0.15 mM) and inosine (0.1-1.0 mM) gave significantly higher (P < 0.01) total serosal purine concentrations than their respective bases. 6. Inosine and guanosine were cleaved to their respective bases plus ribose phosphate by the action of a cytoplasmic nucleoside phosphorylase, which was found to have widely different Michaelis constants (Km; 318 +/- 45 and 41.4 +/- 3.6 microM for inosine and guanosine, respectively) and maximum velocities (Vmax; 79.3 +/- 4.0 and 20.5 +/- 0.05 mumol min-1 (mg protein)-1 for inosine and guanosine, respectively). 7. We conclude that hypoxanthine and guanine absorbed by rat small intestine are oxidized to uric acid which is released in the serosa. The corresponding nucleosides are split by phosphorolysis after absorption and the resulting purine bases are converted to uric acid which appears on the serosal side with similar quantities of ribose phosphate.

Cholinergic interneurons in the feeding system of the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis. I. Cholinergic receptors on feeding neurons.

All the identified feeding motoneurons of Lymnaea respond to bath or iontophoretically applied acetylcholine (ACh). Three kinds of receptors (one excitatory, one fast inhibitory and one slow inhibitory) were distinguished pharmacologically. The agonist TMA (tetramethylammonium) activates all three receptors, being weakest at the slow inhibitory receptor. PTMA (phenyltrimethylammonium) is less potent than TMA and is ineffective at the slow inhibitory receptor, which is the only receptor sensitive to arecoline. At 0.5 mM the antagonists HMT (hexamethonium) and ATR (atropine) selectively block the excitatory response, while PTMA reduces the response to ACh at all three receptors. d-TC (curare) antagonizes only the fast excitatory and the fast inhibitory responses, but MeXCh (methylxylocholine) blocks the fast excitatory and slow inhibitory responses solely. For each of the feeding motoneurons, the sign of the cholinergic response (excitation or inhibition) is the same as the synaptic input received in the N1 phase of the feeding rhythm.