[High intestinal transport activity for nucleosides in cattle: a synopsis]

In ruminants large amounts of nucleic acids associated with the microbial cell mass leaving the fore-stomach system via the abomasum enter the small intestine. In dairy cows this amounts to 100-200 g microbial nucleic acids per day. These nucleic acids are very efficiently digested in the small intestine whereby nucleosides were found to be the main degradation products. Therefore, this review centers mainly on the mechanisms of intestinal absorption of nucleosides and their role in nucleic acid digestion. Furthermore, metabolism of nucleosides in intestinal epithelial cells and its bearing for nucleoside absorption and salvage of nucleosides for nucleic acid synthesis in various tissues is considered. According to own studies using isolated intestinal brush-border membrane (BBM) vesicles (BBMV) from dairy cows purine and pyimidine nucleosides are transported actively by two separate Na+ co-transport systems (N1 and N2) across the bovine BBM, whereby transport activity in the small intestine decreases from proximal to distal. Guanosine and inosine appeared to be transported exclusively by N1 while thymidine and cytidine appeared to be transported exclusively by N2. Uridine and adenosine had an affinity to both transporters. In comparison to findings in man and rabbit, transport capacity (Vmax) of N1 and N2 in the BBM of cows was more than 10-fold higher. Similar findings were obtained in BBMV isolated from the small intestine of veal calves with rudimentary forestomach development in regard to nucleoside transport. Therefore, the high intestinal transport activity for nucleosides seems to be a genetically fixed property in the bovine, which is not related to a functional fore-stomach system.