Glycosides are a major group of plant secondary compounds characterized by one or more sugars conjugated to a lipophilic, possibly toxic aglycone, which is released upon hydrolysis. We compared small intestinal homogenate hydrolysis activity of three rodent and two avian species against four substrates: amygdalin and sinigrin, two plant derived glucosides, the sugar lactose, whose hydrolysis models some activity against flavonoid and isoflavonoid glucosides, and the disaccharide sugar maltose (from starch), used as a comparator. Three new findings extend our understanding of physiological processing of plant glucosides: (1) the capacity of passerine birds to hydrolyze plant glucosides seems relatively low, compared to rodents; (2) in this first test of vertebrates' enzymic capacity to hydrolyze glucosinolates, sinigrin hydrolytic capacity seems low; (3) in laboratory mice hydrolytic activity against lactose resides on the enterocytes' apical membrane facing the intestinal lumen, but activity against amygdalin seems to reside inside enterocytes.
Small intestinal hydrolysis of plant glucosides: higher Glucohydrolase activities in rodents than passerine birds
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K. M. Lessner, M. Denise Dearing, I. Izhaki, M. Samuni-Blank, Z. Arad, W. H. Karasov; Small intestinal hydrolysis of plant glucosides: higher Glucohydrolase activities in rodents than passerine birds. J Exp Biol 2015; jeb.121970. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.121970
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