Activity and post-prandial regulation of digestive enzyme activity along the Pacific hagfish (Eptatretus stoutii) alimentary canal.

ABSTRACT: Hagfishes are living representatives of the earliest-diverging vertebrates and are thus useful for the study of early vertebrate physiology. It has been previously postulated that digestive enzymes account for the majority of digestion because hagfish are agastric with notable zymogen granules in specialized cells of the hindgut. While the presence of some digestive enzymes (amylase, lipase and leucinaminopeptidase) have been confirmed with histochemistry, quantification of enzymatic activity is limited. This study sought to biochemically quantify the tissue activity of six digestive enzymes (α-amylase, maltase, lipase, trypsin, aminopeptidase and alkaline phosphatase) along the length of the Pacific hagfish (Eptatretus stoutii) alimentary canal. In addition, the effect of feeding on the r

SUBMITTER: Weinrauch AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6450612 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature