Functional defect of zinc transport in patients with Crohn's disease

In the present study, we investigated the question whether the zinc deficiency in Crohn's disease is, at least partly, related to defective zinc entry at the jejunal brush border membrane. Brush border membrane vesicles (BBMV) were prepared from surgically resected pieces of morphologically intact human jejunum by a Mg++ precipitation method. We studied zinc, D-glucose, sodium and D-mannitol uptake into BBMV in 27 patients: 1) 20 patients with Crohn's disease 2) 7 controls. In 8/20 patients with Crohn's disease we found a significant decrease in zinc uptake (-25% +/- 5%, p less than 0.05) into BBMV. This impairment of zinc uptake in 40% of our patients with Crohn's disease was not associated with changes in the transport rates for D-glucose, sodium or D-mannitol. In addition no differences in enzyme marker concentrations or electron microscopic appearance were found.