Purification and characterization of guinea-pig intestinal brush borders

The purification of guinea-pig intestinal brush borders by a rapid sucrose-gradient-centrifugation step is reported. A 29-fold increase in the maltase/DNA quotient indicates considerable purification of the brush borders from nuclei. The biological activity of the brush borders was well preserved, as demonstrated by a high recovery of human gastric-juice-mediated uptake of 57Co-labelled vitamin B-12; homogeneity and purity were confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. Both the morphological appearance and biological activity were unchanged after prolonged storage in glycerol.