Alanyl-glutamine hastens morphologic recovery from 5-fluorouracil-induced mucositis in mice.

Objective: In this study, we postulated the beneficial role of oral alanyl-glutamine, a more stable glutamine derivative to decrease 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)-induced mucositis in mice.

Methods: We measured different morphologic parameters to assess structural changes over time in the small bowel, including crypt depth, villus height, villus area, mitotic and apoptotic indices at the crypt level using terminal deoxyuridine triphosphate nick end labeling, and hematoxylin-eosin staining of ileal tissue. In addition, we analyzed the effect of different alanyl-glutamine concentrations on animal weight curves after 5-FU treatment.