Abstract
Chicks develop an enlarged pancreas when fed unheated soybean meal. Autoclaving the meal destroys or inactivates the heat-labile component(s) which cause this effect on the pancreas 5 . Recent histological studies in our laboratory 24 have confirmed that this enlargment is due to hyperplasia of the pancreatic acinar cells, but the cause of this hyperplasia is not known 2 . Homogenates of the enlarged pancreas have lower amounts of amylase, but higher levels of trypsin and chymotrypsin 20 . Grossman et al. 9 . and more recently Desnuelle et al. 6 , suggested that differences in levels of pancreatic enzymes could be due to different rates of synthesis in response to dietary composition and/or an altered rate of secretion of enzymes from the pancreas. Most of the published results on pancreatic changes were obtained with pancreatic homogenates, a technique that precludes distinction between the suggested alternatives.
The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of changing the nature, or source, of the dietary protein and carbohydrate on the volume and composition of the exocrine pancreatic secretion of chicks.
Experimental Procedure. Chicks were raised from 1 day of age to 3 weeks on four different diets containing autoclaved or unheated soybean meal with either glucose or cornstarch as the carbohydrate source. Composition of the basal diet has been described 21 . Twelve birds (3/ treatment) were used for the pancreatic function studies and 36 (9/ treatment) for the determinations of intestinal pH. Chicks were anesthetized with pentobarbital sodium (20 mg/kg, intravenously) and the main pancreatic duct (of the three or four pancreatic ducts present in the chick) was cannulated using polyethylene tubing (PE 50).
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