Effect of ethanol on intestinal calcium transport in chicks

To test the hypothesis that chronic ethanol exposure would alter the membrane fluidity of the intestinal brush-border membrane, which would lead to calcium malabsorption, we gave chicks 15% ethanol in their drinking water from hatching to 3 or 4 wk of age. Although such chicks grew less quickly than their hatchmates not ingesting ethanol, their ability to absorb calcium from the duodenum in vivo was unimpaired. However, when calcium accumulation by isolated duodenal brush-border membrane vesicles (BBMVs) was assessed, the BBMVs from chicks ingesting ethanol for 1–3 wk had a lower rate of uptake than the BBMVs from the controls at all calcium concentrations evaluated (0.1–25 mM). This difference could not be explained by differences in membrane fluidity as assessed by fluorescence depolarization, or by changes in intravesicular volume. Glucose uptake was not affected. The acute addition of ethanol (up to 1 M) in vitro to the control BBMVs increased both membrane fluidity and calcium accumulation. No difference in the fluidizing effect of ethanol in BBMVs between ethanol-ingesting chicks and control chicks could be demonstrated, although the acute effect of ethanol on calcium accumulation was blunted in the BBMVs from chicks ingesting ethanol. Increasing the temperature of the incubation medium also increased membrane fluidity and calcium accumulation in BBMVs from control and ethanol-ingesting chicks, with a greater increase in calcium uptake by the control BBMVs despite comparable increases in fluidity in BBMVs from the control and ethanol-ingesting chicks. We conclude that the chronic ingestion of ethanol by chicks, although markedly altering growth rates, has minimal impact on the intestinal absorption of calcium when assessed in vivo. However, chronic ethanol ingestion does appear to alter the intestinal brush-border membrane to make it less permeable to calcium and less susceptible to the stimulation by ethanol of calcium flux across this membrane; this adaptation may prevent increased flux of calcium across the brush-border membrane into the cell in the presence of ethanol.