Commercial rodent feed as an occasional cause of morbidity and mortality in a rat breeding colony.

In the last fifteen years there were several feed-related outbreaks of morbidity and mortality in the Institute's breeding colony of Wistar rats. The last event took place in April 1999, one month after the use of a new supply of the usual standard rodent feed. Animals did not thrive and manifested generalised oedema, hypoalbuminaemia, elevated liver enzymes, and high mortality.

NHE3 and NHERF are targeted to the basolateral membrane in proximal tubules of colchicine-treated rats.

Background: Depolymerization of microtubules in proximal tubule (PT) cells of colchicine-treated rats causes disruption of vesicle recycling and redistribution of some brush-border membrane (BBM) transporters into cytoplasmic vesicles. NHE3, an isoform of the Na+/H+ exchanger in the PT cell BBM, is acutely regulated by a variety of mechanisms, including protein trafficking and interaction with the PDZ protein, NHERF. The effects of microtubule disruption by colchicine on NHE3 trafficking in PT and the potential role of NHERF in this process have not been studied.