Accelerated digestion of nucleic acids by pepsin from the stomach of chicken

Abstract

1. Nucleic acids have become an important nutritional supplement in poultry feed; however, the digestion of nucleic acids in poultry is unclear. The objective of this study was to investigate the digestion of nucleic acids by chicken pepsin in vitro.

2. The extracted pepsinogen from the stomach of the chicken was purified to homogeneity. Upon activation at pH 2.0, chicken pepsinogen was converted to its active form.

3. Nucleic acids, including λ-DNA, salmon sperm DNA and single-strand DNA (ssDNA), can be used as substrates and digested into short-chain oligonucleotides by pepsin.

4. Interestingly, the digestion of the nucleic acids was inhibited when pepsin was treated by alkaline solution (pH 8.0) or pepstatin A. Also, the digestion of the nucleic acids was not affected by the addition of haemoglobin or bovine serum albumin.

5. The results suggested that nucleic acids could be digested by chicken pepsin. Thus pepsin may have a role in digesting nucleic acids in vivo. Nucleic acids added to poultry fed may be digested, starting from the stomach.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00071668.2016.1200012.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are thankful to the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 31201327]; National Youth Qianren Plan of China; Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars and State Education Ministry.