Ecological physiology of diet and digestive systems

• Autores: Karasov, William H.; Martinez del Rio, Carlos; Caviedes Vidal, Enrique Juan Raul
• Año de publicación: 2011
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: Adaptation; Hydrolases; Transporters; Microbiome; Absorption
• Institución: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas

The morphological and functional design of gastrointestinal tracts of many vertebrates and invertebrates can be explained largely by the interaction between diet chemical constituents and principles of economic design, both of which are embodied in chemical reactor models of gut function. Natural selection seems to have led to the expression of digestive features that approximately match digestive capacities with dietary loads while exhibiting relatively modest excess. Mechanisms explaining differences in hydrolase activity between populations and species include gene copy number variations and single-nucleotide polymorphisms. In many animals, both transcriptional adjustment and posttranscriptional adjustment mediate phenotypic flexibility in the expression of intestinal hydrolases and transporters in response to dietary signals. Digestive performance of animals depends also on their gastrointestinal microbiome. The microbiome seems to be characterized by large beta diversity among hosts and by a common core metagenome and seems to differ flexibly among animals with different diets.
Fil: Karasov, William H.. University of Wisconsin; Estados Unidos
Fil: Martinez del Rio, Carlos. University of Wyoming. Department of Zoology and Physiology; Estados Unidos
Fil: Caviedes Vidal, Enrique Juan Raul. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico San Luis. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones Biológicas de San Luis; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Luis. Facultad de Quimica, Bioquimica y Farmacia. Departamento de Bioquímica y Ciencias Biológicas; Argentina