Abstract

In rat small intestine, during postnatal development, the glycoprotein fucosylation is markedly increased at weaning. At the same time, a rise in the intestinal spermidine level was observed, partly due to the increase in the spermidine content of solid food given to animals at this period as compared to the spermidine content of milk. In order to mimic the spermidine increase observed in weanling rat intestines, we had treated suckling rats with spermidine by oral ingestion to study its role as maturation factor of the small intestine. In spermidine-treated suckling rats, the spermidine and N-acetyl-spermidine contents were highly increased. Spermidine treatment induced the rise in α-1,2-fucosyltransferase activity and the precocious appearance in the brush-border membrane of some α-1,2-fucoproteins in weaned rats. Such results indicate that spermidine could be a maturation factor implicated in the appearance of α-1,2-fucoproteins naturally observed at weaning time.

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