Characteristics of Oxalate Uptake Along the Villus-Crypt Axis in Rat Intestine

Dietary oxalate is an important contributor to the body oxalate pool. So far, oxalate absorption from the gut has been studied using intestinal everted sacs or brush-border membrane vesicles. Oxalate absorption has been shown to be a simple diffusion process, and increases linearly with increases in concentration. No studies are available on oxalate uptake by enterocytes isolated from various heights of the intestinal villus-crypt axis. In order to understand the mechanism of oxalate intestinal absorption at a cellular level, oxalate uptake was studied in enterocytes isolated from various heights along the intestinal villus-crypt axis. Enterocytes were isolated sequentially along villus-crypt axis based on the pattern of distribution of sucrase, alkaline phosphatase, and leucine aminopeptidase (1).