Effect of hydrocortisone on the desialylation of intestinal brush‐border enzymes of the rat during postnatal development

Abstract

Hydrocortisone acetate or hemisuccinate (75 mg/kg body mass) applied to rats i.m. and/or s.c. on the 9th and 10th postnatal days causes a precocious decrease of sialic acid content of the small intestinal brush-border membrane. On the 15th postnatal day the bound sialic acid of the whole membrane fraction drops to almost half of the values of control animals and to one third of the control values for the papain-solubilized membrane proteins. The hydrocortisone effect is manifested on isoelectric focusing zymograms by a faster increase of pI of the solubilized brush-border enzymes on the 12th and 15th postnatal days.