Effect of combined treatment with growth hormone and glutamine on expression of c-fos and c-jun mRNA in intestinal mucosa of rats with small bowel syndrome

Objective To explore the molecular mechanism of combined treatment with growth hormone and glutamine preventing intestinal mucosal atrophy.Methods Forty Sprague Dawley rats with small bowel syndrome were randomized to four groups according to 2×2 factorial experiment and were treated with standard total parenteral nutrition (TPN group,n=10), glutamine enriched TPN (TPN+Gln group,n=10), growth hormone enriched TPN (TPN+GH group,n=10) or glutamine and growth hormone enriched TPN (TPN+Gln+GH group,n=10) respectively for 6 days. Eight normal sham operated rats served as baseline controls (control group,n=8). The expression of c fos and c jun mRNA in intestinal mucosa was detected by using RT PCR technique.Results The expression levels of c fos and c jun mRNA in the TPN group were 0.11±0.07 and 0.29±0.10, which were significantly decreased as compared with 0.48± 0.15 and 0.57±0.22 in the control group (P0.05). The expression levels of c fos and c jun mRNA in the TPN+Gln or TPN+GH group were 0.32±0.15 and 0.48± 0.21 or 0.36±0.13 and 0.46±0.17, which were significantly increased as compared with thos in the TPN group (P0.05); The expression levels of c fos and c jun mRNA in the TPN+Gln+GH group were 0.35±0.16 and 0.61±0.13, which were significantly increased as compared with those in the TPN group (P0.05).Conclusion Growth hormone or glutamine treatment prevents intestinal mucosal atrophy possibly by up regulating expression of c fos and c jun in intestinal mucosa to promote intestinal cell proliferation. Moreover combined use of these two gut trophic factors can produce synergistic effects.