[Comparative study of the absorption of enzymatic protein hydrolysates in the small intestine of the rat. 2. The absorption of tryptic, thermitatic and tryptic-thermitatic casein hydrolysates compared with the equimolar composition of free amino acids].

Tryptic, thermitatic, and tryptic-thermitatic casein hydrolyzates as well as their equimolar amino-acid mixture were perfused through proximal and distal parts of the intestine (10 cm length) of nonanaesthesized rats. The total amino-acid concentration of the perfused solution was 50 mM. The absorption of nitrogen and total amino acids respectively did not reveal significant absorption advantages in favour of the hydrolyzates. In contrast to this, some peptidic bound amino acids of these hydrolyzates show a significantly better absorption as compared to free amino acids. At this, dependences of the kind of hydrolyzate and the part of the intestine are evident. Glutamic acid, e.g. is generally more rapidly absorbed when peptidic bound; methionine is more rapidly absorbed only from the thermitatic and tryptic-thermitatic hydrolyzates, and alanine and glycin only in the distal part of the intestine. Independent of the amino acid or peptide substrate the total absorption of all the amino acids is higher in the distal part of the intestine. The comparison concerning the ranking order of the single amino-acid absorption rates shows in the two parts of the intestine distinct differences between the amino-acid mixtures and the enzymatic hydrolyzates. The lowest differences were found between the thermitatic and the tryptic-thermitatic hydrolyzate. Both of them have approximately the same degrees of hydrolysis (30 and 35%, respectively). The variability of the amino-acid absorption from the three casein hydrolyzates is lower in comparison with the amino-acid mixture. The tryptic-thermitatic hydrolyzates have the lowest coefficients of variability.