Abstract
Germfree animals are thought to be an useful tool to establish a primary vitamin K (K) deficient model not caused by K antagonists or antibiotics treatment, because of their lack of intestinal flora. By an improvement of dietary oil source as short as 8 days feeding, severe K deficient symptoms were occurred in Germfree-K-deficient diet fed group only, whereas not at all in Conventional-K-deficient one. From the HPLC analysis of MK-4 content in liver, it was suspected that the content of MK-4 which had been thought to be an important form of K was not necessarily paralleled with the degree of K deficiency. This tendency was also observed in case of sodium latamoxef-treated mice, i.e., the hepatic content of MK-6 rather than MK-4 might reflect the degree of K deficiency. It was shown that the administered MK-4 into the colon or cecum was actually absorbed, and the curable effect of MK-4 administration on K deficiency was confirmed by the results of hepatic PIVKA-II analysis and PT or APTT measurements.
