Mechanism of induction of mucosal ornithine decarboxylase by food.

Refeeding fasted rats dramatically increases ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) activity in the mucosa of the small intestine and colon. The agents responsible for that activation and pathways leading to activation, however, have not been identified. The current work examines whether stimulation of ODC activity is mediated humorally or directly and whether dietary amines might be in part responsible for activation. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were used 1 wk after they were surgically prepared with Thiry-Vella jejunal loops. Two hours after refeeding rats fasted for 48 h, ODC activity increased 40-fold in mucosa from the intact jejunum and 4-fold in the mucosa of the bypassed segments. The injection of intestinal contents (obtained from additional fed rats) into the bypassed loop caused a 10-fold increase in ODC activity in the loop measured 2 h later. Injection of gut contents, lyophilized to remove dietary amines, produced no change in enzyme activity. The addition of 400 mol dimethylamine to lyophilized gut contents restored enzyme activation to 80% of the previous level. These data allow the following conclusions: following a meal mucosal ODC is activated by both humoral and direct mechanisms, direct stimulation by dietary constituents appears to be the predominant mechanism involved, and dietary amines may be one of the agents involved in directly increasing enzyme activity.