Elsevier

Clinical Nutrition

Volume 26, Issue 3, June 2007, Pages 335-340
Clinical Nutrition

Original Article
The impact of arginine on bacterial translocation in an intestinal obstruction model in rats

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2006.12.007Get rights and content

Summary

Background & aims

Arginine has been shown to have multiple beneficial metabolic and immunologic effects in stress situations. Supplementation of arginine has been shown to promote wound healing and intestinal mucosal recovery after trauma, ischemia or intestinal resection. Bacterial translocation has also been evaluated although with conflicting results and using different assessing techniques. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of arginine on bacterial translocation in an intestinal obstruction model in rats using Escherichia coli labeled with 99mTechnetium.

Methods

Male Wistar rats (250–350 g) were randomized to receive conventional chow, diet supplemented with pure arginine or diet supplemented with an immunonutrition enteral formula, enriched with arginine, omega-3 fatty acid and RNA. After 7 days, the animals were anesthetized. Terminal ileum was isolated and a ligature was placed around it. E. coli labeled with 99mTechnetium (99mTc-E. coli) was inoculated into the intestinal lumen (terminal ileum). After 24 h, the animals were sacrificed. Blood, mesenteric lymph nodes (MLN), liver, spleen and lungs were removed for radioactivity determination.

Results

Arginine supplementation (300 mg/day, 600 mg/day or present in the enteral formula) reduced the level of bacterial translocation when compared with the control group (p<0.05). This was shown by significantly decrease uptake of 99mTc-E. coli in blood, MLN, liver, spleen and lungs of the animals in the experimental groups (p<0.05).

Conclusions

These results have shown that arginine was able to decrease bacteria translocation despite intestinal obstruction. There are several mechanisms which might explain the role of arginine and these will be the subject of future studies.

Section snippets

Background

Nutrition has usually been seen as the supply of energy and nitrogen to maintain body mass. Recent studies have, however, revealed that nutrition also plays an important role in modulating the immune and inflammatory responses. The clinical relevance of this modulation has led to the investigation of diets containing specific substrates the so-called immunonutrients, such as glutamine, arginine, nucleotides and omega-3 fatty acids.1 These formulas have been related to modulation of gut

Animals

Forty male Wistar rats weighting between 250 and 350 g were included in this study. The animals were randomized to five groups of eight animals each one: (1) “sham” operated (no obstruction; inoculation of 12.5 MBq of 99mTechnetium-Escherichia coli (99mTc-E. coli)) fed a conventional chow diet (LABINA®, Purina, Brazil; 23% protein); (2) IO group fed a conventional chow diet, submitted to intestinal obstruction and inoculation of 12.5 MBq of 99mTc-E. coli; (3) Arginine 300 mg group fed conventional

Composition of standard chow and supplemented chows

The composition of standard and supplemented chows is shown in Table 1. There was an increase in total calories in the Impact formula (355.6 kcal/100 g) compared to the conventional chow (275 kcal/100 g) and the arginine supplemented chow (264.3 kcal/100 g).

There was an increase of protein, nitrogen and arginine in the chow supplemented with arginine and an increase of arginine, fat and total calories in the chow supplemented with the enteral formula. Carbohydrate content was slight reduced in all

Discussion

The role of arginine in preventing bacterial translocation in an experimental intestinal obstruction model was assessed. Although arginine has been reported to reduce bacterial translocation in experimental obstructive jaundice models by recovering viable organisms from the mesenteric lymph node (MLN) and spleen16, 17, 18 in our study we used 99mTechnetium E. coli. This method is very fast, direct, simple and does not require aseptic conditions throughout the experiments.13, 15 Another key

Acknowledgments

Ajionomoto, Brazil and Novartis Brazil for having, respectively, given Arginine and the Impact formula. CNPQ (National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development), Fundep (Fundação de Desenvolvimento da Pesquisa) for the grants.

Iara Eliza Pacífico Quirino contributed the conception and design of the experiment and experimental procedures, statistical analysis and interpretation of data; Maria Isabel T.D. Correia the conception and design of the study, interpretation of the data,

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