[Dehydrogenase activity in small intestine mucosa in experimental coccidiosis in suckling pigs]

The activities of 3-beta-hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase (EC. 1.1.1.30.; HBD) and isocitrate dehydrogenase (EC. 1.1.1.41; ICD) were evaluated microdensitometrically in the mucosa of duodenum, jejunum and ileum of 19 conventional piglets infected on the first day after parturition (DAP) with oocysts of Eimeria debliecki coccidium (infection dose of 200,000 oocysts). The two investigated enzymes are deposited in mitochondria which are dispersed in the supra-, para- and infranuclear region of absorption cells (Fig. 1). The synthesis of the two dehydrogenases was investigated in the small intestine mucosa in the period of 1st to 10th day after infection (DAI). The HBD and ICD activities were also followed in the small intestine of four control conventional piglets at the age of 2-5 days (Tab. I). The two dehydrogenases could be characterized by a topographic gradient; it means that their activity was increasing in the small intestine mucosa through duodenum in an aboral direction. The ICD activity is higher in the intestinal mucosa of healthy piglets (Figs. 2 and 3), where its topic concentration was more marked while the HBD activity is dispersed in enterocytes (Fig. 4). In infected piglets the density of the two enzymes was demonstrated to decrease already in the starting period of experimental infection, and it reaches the lowest values for the first time on DAI 5-6 (Fig. 5, Tab. II), then on DAIs 9 (HBD; Fig. 6, graph 11)) or 8 (ICD, Fig. 7 and 10). In the period of experimental infection no statistically significant predisposition to the hypoactivity of target dehydrogenases nor its marked shift were observed. Somewhat rapid resumption of synthesis was demonstrated as soon as on DAI 8 in ICD (Fig. 8); its activity on DAI 10 in the intestinal mucosa corresponded to the 93% activity of this dehydrogenase recorded in the small intestine of control piglets. The density of HBD to the same day (DAI 10) reached in the intestinal mucosa of infected piglets the values making only 44.7% of those demonstrated in the intestinal mucosa of the control group of animals.