Metabolically active, single cell preparations from the mucosal epithelium of rabbit small intestine.

Limited treatment with papain has been used to liberate isolated epithelial cells from the epithelial mucosa of the rabbit small intestine. Such cell populations retain their brush borders, have a Qo of -10 μl O/mg protein/hour and incorporate d[C]glucosamine into three high molecular weight components having certain electrophoretic properties characteristic of glycoproteins. This system should be valuable for studying glycoprotein metabolism in epithelial cells without interference from sub-epithelial tissues.