Mucosal morphology in isolated bowel segments: importance of exposure to luminal contents

An isolated bowel segment (IBS) is a loop of intestine that has been freed from its mesenteric attachment after the development of vascular collaterals between the antimesenteric surface of the gut and the host organ. Surgical creation of such artificially vascularized isolated bowel segments is of interest to researchers for a variety of studies, and may be useful in the treatment of short bowel syndrome, allowing longitudinal division of the remaining small bowel to double its length. We created four surgical variants to study the ability of the collateral blood supply to maintain mucosal integrity in the presence or absence of normal luminal contents. In all groups, a collateral blood supply was created in a 5- to 7-cm segment of adult rat jejunum by hepatoenteropexy (Iowa model II). In Thiry-Vella (T-V) and isolated bowel segment (IBS) rats, this segment was exteriorized at both ends to exclude luminal contents. Control and IBS in continuity (IBS-C) loops were left in continuity. The mesentery of IBS and IBS-C rats was divided 5 weeks later, leaving the experimental segment entirely dependent on the collateral circulation. All animals were harvested at 7 weeks after the initial surgery. Tissues were analyzed for mucosal weight, protein content per centimeter of bowel, length of villi, depth of crypts, DNA content, and sucrase activity. We found that segments retaining luminal continuity had significantly higher mucosal weight and DNA content per centimeter of bowel compared with exteriorized loops.