Facile preparation of rat intestinal mucosa for assay of mucosal enzyme activity.

Intestinal mucosa of rats was prepared by squeezing the frozen and thawed intestine. The method was much easier compared to the conventional method in which intestine was cut longitudinally or everted and mucosa was scraped. Jejunal mucosal weight prepared by the two methods was not different, but ileal mucosal weight prepared by squeezing was significantly heavier than that by scraped. No significant difference was observed between activity of some brush border enzymes (arylamidase, aminopeptidase, alkaline phosphatase, and sucrase) in mucosa prepared by squeezing and that by conventional scraping method in jejunum. Activity of brush border aminopeptidase and sucrase in ileal mucosa prepared by squeezing was significantly higher than that prepared by scraping.