Abstract
New technological advances in Ussing chamber design have resulted in the development of a micro-Ussing chamber that can hold tissues acquired by forceps biopsy. This new Ussing chamber system, that can hold such small tissues, requires the development of new protocols for generating and evaluating the experimental data obtained with the new apparatus. Clinical rotavirus diarrheal disease is usually limited to infants and neonates. The rotaviral non-structural glycoprotein 4 (NSP4) is enterotoxic and induces a chloride efflux across neonatal mouse intestinal mucosa. Chloride ion efflux across mucosal tissue is measured as an electrical current in Ussing chambers and is the predominant electrolyte driving fluid secretion. Until recently a physiologically relevant age group of mice could not be evaluated for NSP4 induced chloride secretion because the standard size Ussing chamber could not accommodate the small size tissues of mice less than about 20 days of age. The micro-Ussing chamber made it possible for the first time to examine the chloride flux across unstripped intestinal mucosa from young mice. The objectives of this study are to establish a protocol for evaluating chloride efflux across mouse ileal tissues in neonatal mice and to utilize this newly established protocol to evaluate the enterotoxic effect of rotavirus synthetic peptide NSP4(121-147) in neonatal mouse ileal mucosal tissues.
Cox, Virginia Waters (2002). Induction of chloride secretory currents across mouse ileal tissues by rotavirus enterotoxic peptide in different age mice. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -2002 -THESIS -C4648.