Year: 1973
Type: article
Abstract: Progress report Experimental ulcerative disease of the colon in animalsUntil recent years, there have been few successful attempts to produce experimental ulcerative disease of the colon.Several methods, including the injection of cholinergic and adrenergic drugs, the prolonged administration of histamine and histamine-releasers, the local injection of collagenase, the oral or intraarterial administration of lysozyme, as well as immunological procedures, have been used to produce experimental 'colitis' in various animal species, but the significance of these reactions in relation to the clinical condition in man remains in doubt'.Of considerable interest from the immunological aspect is the work of Zweibaum, Morard, and Halpern2.They immunized rats with living E. coli injected subcutaneously in Freund's adjuvant and produced a form of haemorrhagic ulcerative 'colitis', which they considered as being very similar to human ulcerative colitis in its symptoms, course, and histological characteristics.Four years ago, it was reported that extracts of various red seaweeds fed to animals in their drinking water caused ulcerative disease of the colon in several species, including guinea-pigs, rabbits, rats, amd mice3.The extracts contained carrageenan, a sulphated polysaccharide of high molecular weight (100000-800000)4.Mild acid hydrolysis of the native carrageenan produced a degraded product with a molecular weight of less than 30000 but retaining its original sulphate content and polyanionic properties.The degraded product was found to be more ulcerogenic than the native or undegraded carrageenan.These observations have subsequently been confirmed in guinea-pigs and rabbits56'.The most recent work indicates that other high molecular weight sulphated products such as sulphated amylopectin and sodium lignosulphonate cause similar lesions in the colon of animals7.A new field has thus been opened up in the experimental investigation of ulcerative disease of the colon8. Carrageenan-induced UlcerationCarrageenan-induced ulceration of the colon in small laboratory animals was first recognized in guinea-pigs which had been fed 1 % aqueous extracts of the dried red seaweed, Eucheuma spinosum, over a period of five months.Although all of the animals had gained weight satisfactorily, when the animals were sacrificed at the end of the experiment, careful examination of the colon using transmitted light revealed the presence of multiple ulcerations9.The same extract was found to cause ulceration of the colon in rabbits when fed in the drinking water over a period of three months.In further experiments using carrageenan derived from the same seaweed but degraded by mild acid hydrolysis ulcerative lesions of a similar kind were produced not only in guinea-pigs and rabbits but also in mice and rats.506
Source: Gut
DOI: 10.1136/gut.14.6.506
Language: English
Topic: Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Subfield: Gastroenterology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2074587150