ABSTRACT

During the process of aging, many physiological functions in organs change. Mitochondria play an important role in aging. In addition, there are several important gastrointestinal system dysfunction and intestinal problems occur in aging. The aim of this study is to examine how aging affects the gastrointestinal motility and to investigate the effects of the (2-(2,2,6,6-Tetramethylpiperidin-1-oxyl-4-ylamino)-2-oxoethyl) triphenylphosphonium chloride monohydrate (mitoTEMPO) in adult and aged rats’ gastrointestinal contractility, on the isolated ileal and duodenal segments.

In this work, 24-month old male was used as aged-rats and was compared with those of 6-month old as adult-rats. The isolated duodenal and ileal segments were suspended in isolated tissue-bath. The contractile responses induced with acetylcholine (ACh) and the relaxation responses induced with phenylephrine were recorded. In order to study the effects of mito-TEMPO, the segments were incubated for one hour with 1 μm mito-TEMPO and the responses of acetylcholine and phenylephrine were recorded.

The results indicate that the responses of the ACh-induced contraction were significantly lower in aged rats as compared to adult animals in the ileal and duodenal segments, and phenylephrine-induced relaxations were higher in the duodenal segments.

Treatment with the antioxidant mitoTEMPO has significantly affected the responses to the ACh-induced contraction and phenylephrine-induced relaxation that occurs with aging.