Implication of insulin and nutritional factors in the regulation of intestinal galactosyltransferase activity during postnatal development

Abstract

In the rat small intestine, galactosyltransferases are the enzymes implicated in the biosynthesis of glycoproteins of the brush-border membranes and mucins. During postnatal development, the circulating insulin level increased at weaning in parallel with the activities of intestinal galactosyltransferases on O-glycans and N-glycans. This study deals with the role of insulin in the regulation of galactosyltransferase activities during postnatal development. The treatment of immature suckling rats with insulin induced a precocious increase in the activities of the O-glycan and N-glycan galactosyltransferases, partly reproducing the increase in galactosyltransferase activity normally found at weaning, since the O-glycan galactosyltransferase activity increased more quickly than the N-glycan galactosyltransferase activity. The sensitivity of the two galactosyltransferase activities to insulin disappeared after weaning, a period when drastic diet changes occur. In 22-day-old rats submitted to prolonged nursing (high-fat diet), the activities of the O-glycan and N-glycan galactosyltransferases were lower than those found in age-matched normally weaned rats (high-carbohydrate diet), indicating a delay in the maturation of the intestine of prolonged-nursing rats. The circulating insulin level of these animals stayed lower than that of the age-matched weaned rats. When the prolonged-nursing animals were treated with insulin, the O-glycan and N-glycan galactosyltransferase activities reached levels similar to those of the weaned rats. These observations suggest that insulin is one of the maturation factors for intestinal glycoprotein galactosylation and may be partly responsible for the natural enhancement of intestinal galactosyltransferase activities observed during postnatal development in relation to the dietary changes at weaning.