Effect of oxygen tension on glucose metabolism in rabbit kidney cortex and medulla.

LEE, JAMES B., AND HELEN M. PETER. Effect of oxygen tension on glucose metabolism in rabbit kidney cortex and medulla. Am. J. Physiol. 217(5) : 1464-1471. 1969.-Slices of rabbit renal cortex, outer medulla, outer papilla, and papillary tip were incubated in KrebsRinger bicarbonate buffer containing glucose-UJ4C, 10 II~M. Incremental increases in medium POT from 32 to 530 mm Hg resulted in a stepwise rise in cortical and outer medullary glucose oxidation from 0.11 and 0.37 to 6.81 and 4.14 pmoles/g initial wt per 90 min, respectively. However, papillary tip was unable to oxidize glucose significantly (0.65 pmoles/g wet wt per 90 min) even at high oxygen tensions of the medium. Increasing medium Pop resulted in a decrease in net lactate production by outer medulla but not papillary tip. At a high medium oxygen tension, there was a progressive stepwise increase in the intrinsic capacity for glucose oxidation from an almost absent oxidative metabolism in papillary tip to a high rate of oxidation in the outermost zone of the outer medulla and renal cortex. From calculation of theoretical ATP generation it would appear that, at medium POT approximating that believed to exist in vivo, glycolysis in papillary tip, mixed glycolysis and oxidation in outer papilla and outer medulla, and oxidative metabolism in cortex are the major energyyielding pathways in rabbit kidney.