Objective      To investigate the change of glutamine (Gln) transport in intestinal epithelial cells (IEC) and brush border membrane vesicles (BBMV) in rats after burn injury.       Methods      Forty Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into normal control (C) group and burn injury (B) group. The

rats in the C group only received anaesthesia and shaving. The rats in the B group were inflicted with 30% body surface area of full thickness burn by soaking in 90 ℃ water for 18 s. IEC was separated by digestion with collagenase Ⅸ and dispaseⅠ

and BBMV was prepared by magnesium precipitation. The transport rate of [

3

H

]

-Gln into BBMV and IEC was quantitatively detected by radioactivity count per minute (CPM) assay to observe the change of Gln transport rate before burn and on postburn day (PBD) 1

PBD3

PBD5 and PBD7.        Results      BBMV was successfully extracted from the rats by magnesium ion differential centrifugation. It was discovered that Na

+

-dependent Gln transport in IEC mainly relied on the BBMV

accounting for about 60% of the total. Compared with the C group

the Gln transport rate in BBMV was slightly increased in the B group (P0.05) after burn injury except remarkable decrease on PBD1 (P0.01

P0.05). The change of Na

+

-dependent Gln transport in IEC was not significant (P0.05)

but Na

+

-independent Gln transport in IEC showed a rising trend and significantly increased on PBD7 (P0.05).       Conclusion      Gln transport in intestinal epithelial cells rely mainly on Na

+

dependent transport in BBMV. The overall trend of Gln transport in BBMV is firstly decreased and then increased after burn

while that in IEC shows a gradually increasing trend.