Faecal mucus degrading glycosidases in ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.
Because the normal faecal flora includes bacteria which can produce mucus-digesting glycosidases, it follows that increased digestion of colonic mucus by these bacterial enzymes could be important in the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis. Faecal activities of potential mucus-degrading glycosidases have therefore been assayed in samples from patients with inflammatory bowel disease and normal controls. The enzymes alpha-D-galactosidase, beta-D-galactosidase, beta-NAc-D-glucosaminidase alpha-L-fucosidase and neuraminidase were assayed. Considerable glycosidase activity was present in most faecal samples. Similar activities of all the enzymes assayed were found in faeces from patients with ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease and normal controls and there was no significant correlation with disease activity. These results imply that relapse of ulcerative colitis is not initiated by increased degradation of colonic mucus by faecal glycosidases but do not exclude a role for bacterial mucus degradation in the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis.
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Engfer, M. B, Stahl, B., Finke, B., Sawatzki, G., Daniel, H.
(2000). Human milk oligosaccharides are resistant to enzymatic hydrolysis in the upper gastrointestinal tract. Am. J. Clin. Nutr.
71: 1589-1596
[Abstract] [Full Text]
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
