The compartmentation of glycolytic and gluconeogenic enzymes in rat kidney and liver and its significance to renal and hepatic metabolism

Abstract

An indirect immunoperoxidase procedure has been used to demonstrate sites of glycolysis and gluconeogenesis in normal rat kidney and liver. In kidney, the gluconeogenic enzyme fructose 1,6-biphosphatase was restricted to the proximal tubular epithelium, while the glycolytic enzyme hexokinase predominated in more distal segments. Intense staining for the biphosphatase in proximal convoluted tubular brush borders suggests that reabsorbed substrates may be used directly at this site in renal gluconeogenesis. In view of the high phosphofructokinase and pyruvate kinase activities present in collecting ducts, their relatively low hexokinase activities and their relatively pale immunostaining for hexokinase indicate that glycolytic substrates which feed into the pathway subsequent to the initial phosphorylation step, rather than glucose, may be the major energy source for the rat renal papilla. Immunostaining in the liver was consistent with the metabolic zonation of liver parenchyma, in that glucokinase occurred mainly in perivenous regions and fructose 1,6-bisphosphatase in periportal areas. The presence of such metabolic zonation is difficult to reconcile with the widely held view that the majority of hepatic glycogen is derived directly from glucose. A model for hepatic glycogen synthesis is proposed which links the concept of parenchymal zonal heterogeneity with recent biochemical evidence concerning the 'glucose paradox' and with microscopical studies on the dynamics of glycogen deposition after refeeding.