Mechanisms of Intestinal Nutrient Transport in Fish

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The proposed 3-year investigation is a request for a continuation of a program charactering-important fish species. The investigators will use state-of-the-art membrane vesicle techniques to elucidate the mechanisms of amino acid, short-chain fatty acid, peptide, and vitamin uptake into intestinal and pyloric cecal epithelial cells of the trout and tilapia in Hawaii and the upper and lower intestinal segments of the eel in Italy. In addition, cell culture methods will be used to grow confluent epithelial monolayers from intestine and pyloric ceca of the respective fishes which can be mounted in Ussing chambers to investigate the processes of transepithelial nutrient transport. This study should lead to important information about the mechanisms of nutrient absorption in herbivorous (tilapia) and carnivorous (trout, eel) fish species, and should elucidate the relative importance of intestinal and pyloric cecal epithelia in these absorptive processes. The study has application value ecomonics of food utilization in the fish farming operations.