Mechanisms of intestinal adaptation

Mechanisms of adaptation in the intestinal parasite Giardia lamblia.

Giardia lamblia, a parasite of humans, is a major source of waterborne diarrhoeal disease. Giardia is also an excellent system to study basic biochemical processes because it is a single-celled eukaryote with a small genome and its entire life cycle can be replicated in vitro. Giardia trophozoites undergo fundamental changes to survive outside the intestine of their host by differentiating into...

Intestinal adaptation after massive intestinal resection.

Patients with short bowel syndrome require long term parenteral nutrition support. However, after massive intestinal resection the intestine undergoes adaptation and nutritional autonomy may be obtained. Given that the complications of parenteral nutrition may be life threatening or result in treatment failure and the need for intestinal transplantation, a more attractive option is to wean pati...

Short Bowel Syndrome: Intestinal Adaptation

Mechanisms of Intestinal Intussusception Formation

Intussusceptions occur primarily in dogs younger than 1 year of age and are most commonly found at the ileocecocolic junction. Intussusceptions may, however, occur at other locations within the gastrointestinal tract, including the gastroesophageal junction and pylorogastric region. Gastroesophageal and pylorogastric intussusceptions result in more acute, severe clinical signs than do intussusc...

Molecular mechanisms of temperature adaptation.

Thermal perception is a fundamental physiological process pertaining to the vast majority of organisms. In vertebrates, environmental temperature is detected by the primary afferents of the somatosensory neurons in the skin, which express a 'choir' of ion channels tuned to detect particular temperatures. Nearly two decades of research have revealed a number of receptor ion channels that mediate...