Abstract
THE ability of rats to absorb proteins across the gut normally persists until 20 days of age, but can be ended earlier by the administration of certain corticosteroids1,2. As a result of this observation and an investigation of mortality data for suckling rats, it was suggested that a premature loss of absorption might be induced by mothers during stress3. Because of the severe winter of 1962–63 many hill ewes experienced long periods of undernourishment and climatic stress during pregnancy. The opportunity was taken, therefore, to examine lambs which died before weaning in hill flocks on the A.R.C. Animal Breeding Research Organization's farms at Stanhope and Blythbank in Peeblesshire. Post-mortem examination was by the procedures described by McFarlane4. Blood samples were taken from the hearts and the serum proteins separated by electrophoresis on paper for 16 h (2 m.amp/ 5 cm width) in a sodium barbiturate–sodium acetate buffer (pH = 8.6; µ = 0.1) using 0.05 ml. serum samples. The strips were dyed with bromo-phenol blue and the concentration of each component measured with a photoelectric scanner.
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References
Halliday, R., J. Physiol., 140, 44P (1958).
Halliday, R., J. Endocrin., 18, 56 (1959).
Halliday, R., in Somatic Stability in the Newly Born, edit. by Wolstenholme, G. E. W., and O'Connor, M., 241 (Churchill, London, 1961).
McFarlane, D., Aust. Vet. J., 37 (4), 105 (1961).
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HALLIDAY, R. Failure of some Hill Lambs to absorb Maternal Gamma-globulin. Nature 205, 614 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1038/205614a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/205614a0
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