Dietary Fat Feeding Alters Lipid Peroxidation in Surfactant-like Particles Secreted by Rat Small Intestine

BACKGROUND: Long-term feeding of fish oil (n-3) and corn oil (n-6) markedly enhances levels of lipid peroxidation within isolated rat enterocytes. The effect is 10-fold greater at the villus tip than in the crypt region, correlating with the distribution of deleterious oxidative systems (glutathione reductase) in the tip and beneficial systems (superoxide dismutase) at the base of the villus. Because of this vertical gradient of peroxidation, the process was thought to play a role in apoptosis of enterocytes at the villus tip. Surfactant-like particles (SLPs) are membranes secreted by the enterocyte and a component of these membranes is directed to the intestinal surface overlying villus tips. One suggested role for SLPs has been to protect the mucosal surface from the harsh luminal conditions that might enhance apoptotic loss of enterocytes. The hypothesis to be tested was whether SLP lipids, like those in enterocytes, were also peroxidized, although they were external to the cellular processes that seem to oxidize enterocyte lipids, or whether SLP were immune to these biological processes. Feeding with groundnut oil (n-9) was compared with fish oil (n-3) and corn oil (predominantly n-6) to determine whether oils with various lipid composition would affect peroxidation in both SLP and enterocytes. METHODS: After an overnight fast, Wistar rats were fed 2 mL of dietary oil by gavage. Five hours later SLPs and underlying microvillus membranes (MVM) were isolated and analyzed for generation of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and for hydrolase activities, at baseline and after addition of an Fe(+2)/ascorbate system to induce peroxidation. RESULTS: In vitro lipid peroxidation using the Fe(2+)/ascorbate system produced greater peroxidation than in MVM. Intestinal alkaline phosphatase (IAP), sucrase and lactase activities were decreased in SLPs, but were unaltered in MVM except for IAP. The activities of maltase, trehalase, Leucine aminopeptidase and γ–glutamyltranspeptidase, were unaffected both in SLPs and MVM under these conditions. CONCLUSIONS: SLPs are more susceptible to oxidative damage than are the underlying MVMs. This may reflect results of a hostile luminal environment. It is not clear whether SLPs are acting as a lipid ‘sink’ to protect the MVM from greater oxidation, or are providing an initial stimulus for apoptosis of villus tip enterocytes, or both.