Submit a comment
Abstract
There was a significant depression of the activities of intestinal lactase, invertase, and alkaline phosphatase in rats given drinking water containing 2.5 mg of colchicine per 100 ml. Activities of intestinal maltase, aspartate transcarbamylase, and dihydroorotase were not affected by the drug. Injection of colchicine (1 mg/kg) caused depression of intestinal invertase activity within 8 hr. Investigation of the effect of colchicine on the disaccharides in vitro demonstrated that invertase and maltase were not affected by concentrations up to 125 mg/100 ml. Intestinal lactase was inhibited by concentrations exceeding 5 mg/100 ml. Calculation of the concentration of colchicine present in the intestine, after a single injection, indicated that the in vivo effect of colchicine was not due to simple enzyme inhibition.
Authors
John J. Herbst, Ruth Hurwitz, Philip Sunshine, Norman Kretchmer
Guidelines
The Editorial Board will only consider comments that are deemed relevant and of interest to readers. The Journal will not post data that have not been subjected to peer review; or a comment that is essentially a reiteration of another comment.
- Comments appear on the Journal’s website and are linked from the original article’s web page.
- Authors are notified by email if their comments are posted.
- The Journal reserves the right to edit comments for length and clarity.
- No appeals will be considered.
- Comments are not indexed in PubMed.
Specific requirements
- Maximum length, 400 words
- Entered as plain text or HTML
- Author’s name and email address, to be posted with the comment
- Declaration of all potential conflicts of interest (even if these are not ultimately posted); see the Journal’s conflict-of-interest policy
- Comments may not include figures
Copyright © 2026 American Society for Clinical Investigation
ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)