Effect of substituted phenols on movement of water and protein across the intestine

¹ Department of Physiology, University of Chicago School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois; and Department of Physiology, The George Washington University School of Medicine, Washington, D. C.

The action of three substituted phenols on intestinal net water movement in jejunal loops in situ has been studied in the anesthetized dog. The ability of these compounds to influence intestinal net water movement paralleled their previously reported ability to stimulate oxygen uptake and to produce cessation of cleavage in fertilized sea urchin eggs which are thought to be manifestation of their property to uncouple oxidative phosphorylation. Thus two effective uncouplers produced decreases in net absorption at a concentration of 1 x 10^–3 m/l. and net secretion at a concentration of 1 x 10^–2 m/l. A less effective uncoupler produced no change in water movement at a concentration of 1 x 10^–3 m/l. and only a decrease in net absorption at a concentration of 1 x 10^–2 m/l. The substituted phenols produced increases in the amount of protein which could be recovered from the lumen, but the changes in water movement produced by substituted phenols were independent of the mechanism responsible for the protein release.