Publisher's Synopsis
The intestinal epithelium has to perform two opposing tasks: it must facilitate absorption and secretion of solutes and water; but still provide a defense against unwanted uptake or loss of solutes, water and noxious agents. The papers in this volume discuss both functions as they interact in health and in disease. They focus on new regulative pathways and properties of solute transporters; and the molecular basis of the barrier-forming paracellular structures and models for studying disturbed transport and barrier properties. Special attention is given to mechanisms of diarrhoea caused by enterotoxins or by inflammatory bowel diseases.
