JP Jan 14 16
Notes on 1995 ADAPTIVE RESPONSES TO FEEDING IN BURMESE PYTHONS: PAY BEFORE PUMPING Stephen M. Secor and Jared Diamond
Noteworthy text:
Three factors combine to make the metabolic response to feeding so large in pythons compared with that in mammals: the pythons’ much larger meal size; their gut atrophy during their long fasts, requiring a high investment in rebuilding the atrophied gut; and their much lower basal metabolic rates, constituting the low baseline from which oxygen consumption rises during digestion (1321).
The first organs to respond with significant increases in wet mass (within 6 h of the snake’s consuming a meal) are the stomach and small intestine, the organs most immediately involved in digesting the meal (1323).
typical responses to feeding include intestinal hypertrophy and up-regulation of intestinal nutrient transporters and hydrolytic enzymes (1313). Karasov and Diamond, 1987; Toloza et al. 1991.*
- Track this research down, look for specific proteins in order to find the responsible genes.
Methods:
6 & 12 hours; our experiment started the first 30 mins. At what point did the clock start?
Figure 2 suggests that the mass of the food is being liquefied in the stomach; not much solid mass reaches the small intestine; small intestine = absorption, not digestion.
Figure 3: absorption of the amino acids and sugar peaks early (< 10 days post feeding) in the small intestine. Suggests a transport mechanism (intestinal nutrient transporters) active in the small intestine during digestion. How is the genome responding to the feeding with the rapid uptake? Making new proteins - increased transcription? Post translational modifications -> increased uptake? *we won't be able to see this. Increased translation? *we can't see this either.
All we can see would be increased transcription. Need to find the ortholog name of the transporters so as to find in Python.
