| Comments |
Recently, researchers determined the concentration of sugar acids in mouse cecal mucus by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). In addition to significant amounts of glucuronate and galacturonate (Allen A. The structure and function of gastrointestinal mucous. In: Boedeker I E C, editor. Attachment of organisms to the gut mucosa. II. Boca Raton, Fla: CRC Press, Inc. 1984. pp. 3–11.), gluconate is present in mouse cecal mucus at a concentration of 0.69 mM (unpublished results). In vitro growth experiments showed that 0.69 mM gluconate in minimal medium allows formation of 1.5×10^8 E. coli cells (BNID 102539), which is precisely the population of E. coli cells in colonized mice. |