On Digestive Proteolysis: Being the Cartwright Lectures for 1894Chittenden, R. H. (Russell Henry)
Science
On Digestive Proteolysis: Being the Cartwright Lectures for 1894
Chittenden, R. H. (Russell Henry)
Digestion; Digestive enzymes; Enzymes
The small intestine of the rabbit was carefully separated from the
mesentery and from the pancreatic gland, and the upper portion cut
open and quickly washed free from any contained matter or adherent
secretions, by repeated immersion in 0.5 per cent. salt solution warmed
at 40° C. This was repeated until the tissue was quite free from all
impurities, after which it was cut into small pieces and immersed for
a moment in a 0.5 per cent. solution of sodium chloride containing
1.25 per cent. of peptone. The tissue was then carefully collected on
coarse muslin, allowed to drain, and then quickly transferred to the
flask containing the warm blood and peptone. This mixture was kept at
40° C. for two hours, a slow current of air being bubbled through the
fluid during the entire period. At the expiration of this time the
fluid was separated from the pieces of tissue by nitration through
muslin, and then saturated with ammonium sulphate after the usual
method for the separation of albumoses, etc. On now testing a portion
of the clear filtrate for peptone by the biuret test, not a trace of
a reaction could be obtained. The entire amount of proteid matter
present was precipitated by the ammonium salt, thus showing that the
peptone originally added had been completely transformed into something
precipitable by saturation of the fluid with ammonium sulphate. That
this transformation of the peptone was accomplished mainly through the
action of the intestine, was shown by a parallel experiment, in which
all of the above conditions were duplicated, omitting only the pieces
of intestine. Here, however, on testing the filtrate from the ammonium
sulphate-precipitate, a strong biuret reaction was obtained, thus
proving the presence of at least some unaltered peptone.
This experiment is almost a counterpart of one reported by Neumeister,
and like his, testifies to the probability that the peptones formed in
the alimentary tract, as a result of proteolysis, undergo retrogression
through the agency of the epithelial cells of the intestinal walls
during their absorption. I have tried similar experiments with
deuteroproteose, notably with deuterocaseose, and have obtained
corresponding results. The same method may be employed as that already
outlined, although of course the deuterocaseose is in great part
precipitated by saturation with ammonium sulphate. Still, this form
of deuteroproteose, β deuterocaseose, as I have elsewhere noted, is
very slowly precipitated by the ammonium salt. Consequently, it is an
easy matter to demonstrate that this proteose, on treatment with the
intestinal mucosa in the presence of blood at the body-temperature,
is transformed into something completely and readily precipitable by
ammonium sulphate; the filtrate from the latter failing to show any
biuret reaction, although the corresponding control experiment without
the intestine gives a bright violet color with cupric sulphate and
potassium hydroxide.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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