Protease activation during surgical stress in the rat small intestine.

BACKGROUND Surgical stress affects intestinal permeability and our earlier study using a rat model indicated that oxidative stress plays an important role in this process. Proteases are important mediators of cellular damage and are known to be activated in oxidative stress. This study looked at protease activity in enterocytes after surgical stress. METHODS Surgical stress was induced by opening the abdominal wall and handling the intestine as done during laparotomy, in normal and xanthine oxidase-deficient rats. Enterocytes at various stages of differentiation were isolated and protease activity and protection offered by xanthine oxidase inhibitors were determined. Mitochondria and cytosol were prepared from total isolated enterocytes at different periods after surgical stress and protease activation was studied. RESULTS Surgical stress induced activation of proteases in both the villus and crypt cells. Protease activation is seen in both mitochondria and cytosol, and similar to the other alterations in mucosal cells, protease activation was maximum 60 min after stress, returning to normal by 24 h. Thiol compounds modulate protease activity in both mitochondria and cytosol and the activation is not seen in xanthine oxidase-deficient animals. CONCLUSIONS Surgical stress induces activation of proteases in villus and crypt cells of the small intestine. Both mitochondrial and cytosolic proteases are activated and free radicals generated by xanthine oxidase may mediate protease activation after surgical stress in the intestine.