Scientists develop procedure allowing lab animals to ‘breathe’ from their rectum nytimes.com

Photo: The New York Times

Japanese scientists have developed a method that allows lab animals to “breathe” out of their rectum.

In a new study, scientists using an enema of oxygen-carrying liquid proved that oxygen-deprived animals — and maybe people — can be saved via their bottoms.

According to the New York Times, Dr. Takanori Takebe, of the Tokyo Medical and Dental University and the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, started alternative oxygen-delivery research during his father’s struggle with lung disease.

While ventilators are helpful, they’re not always available and can break. “We clearly need different strategies to help out patients with severe lung failure,” Dr. Takebe told the Times.

His research focused on using stem cells in dishes to grow miniature organs, such as lungs. Then he decided to try something totally different: Instead of growing new organs, why not repurpose the organs that mammals, including people, already have?

Turning to the animal kingdom for inspiration, Dr. Takebe learned that many fish and other creatures have evolved multitasking organs. For example, fish called loaches use their gills to take oxygen from the water, as most fish do. But they can also pop their heads above the surface for a gulp of air. Loaches don’t have lungs, so the air they swallow travels through their digestive tract, where their intestines absorb the oxygen they need.

Dr. Takebe and his co-authors set out to see if a mammal’s intestines could also absorb oxygen. They started by simply pumping oxygen gas up the rectums of anesthetized, oxygen-deprived mice.

“The mice started walking around again; the pale skin of the anesthetized pigs turned a healthy pink,” the times reports.

“They are completely recovering from the very, very severe hypoxia,” Takebe told the paper. “That was really astonishing to me.”

Though the procedure helped the mice survive longer, it worked best when researchers scraped the intestinal wall to thin it, making this method not very appealing for treating sick human patients.

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