Does diet influence salivary enzyme activities in elephant species?

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Carolin Boehlke ; Sandra Pötschke ; Verena Behringer…
• 关键词：Elephant ; Salivary enzyme activity ; Amylase ; Nutrition ; Evolution
• 刊名：Journal of Comparative Physiology B
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：187
• 期：1
• 页码：213-226
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Biomedical and Life Sciences
• 刊物主题：Animal Physiology; Biomedicine, general; Human Physiology; Zoology; Biochemistry, general;
• 出版者：Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• ISSN：1432-136X
• 卷排序：187

文摘

Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) and African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are herbivore generalists; however, Asian elephants might ingest a higher proportion of grasses than Africans. Although some studies have investigated nutrition-specific morphological adaptations of the two species, broader studies on salivary enzymes in both elephant species are lacking. This study focuses on the comparison of salivary enzymes activity profiles in the two elephant species; these enzymes are relevant for protective and digestive functions in humans. We aimed to determine whether salivary amylase (sAA), lysozyme (sLYS), and peroxidase (sPOD) activities have changed in a species-specific pattern during evolutionary separation of the elephant genera. Saliva samples of 14 Asian and eight African elephants were collected in three German zoos. Results show that sAA and sLYS are salivary components of both elephant species in an active conformation. In contrast, little to no sPOD activity was determined in any elephant sample. Furthermore, sAA activity was significantly higher in Asian compared with African elephants. sLYS and sPOD showed no species-specific differences. The time of food provision until sample collection affected only sAA activity. In summary, the results suggest several possible factors modulating the activity of the mammal-typical enzymes, such as sAA, sLYS, and sPOD, e.g., nutrition and sampling procedure, which have to be considered when analyzing differences in saliva composition of animal species.