1 Children's Hospital Medical Center Boston, Massachusetts 02115
2 Children's Hospital Medical Center Boston, Massachusetts 02115
The purpose of this paper is to call attention to certain variables in assaying and reporting disaccharidase activities in the intestinal mucosa and to urge the adoption of a standard technique.
In our initial studies we placed the specimen in about 50 ml of ice-cold isotonic saline and "rinsed" it by gently shaking the sealed plaStic vial. It was then removed from the saline; "dried" by sliding it over a cold, clean, glass surface, and weighed. After weighing, the mucosal specimen was homogenized in distilled water. Other investigators froze the specimen immediately after the biopsy, omitting the "rinsing" in the ice-cold isotonic saline.