Oxidation of glucose carbon entering the TCA cycle is reduced by glutamine in small intestine epithelial cells

Abstract

The influence of glutamine on glucose oxidation was assessed in epithelial cells isolated from the mucosa of the proximal, mid-, and distal small intestine of young, fed, male rats. Glucose oxidation declined along the length of the small intestine, with values from the mid- and distal segments representing approximately 55% and 40%, respectively, of the value from the proximal segment. A gradient along the small intestine was noted also in the influence of glutamine on glucose oxidation: glutamine suppressed glucose oxidation approximately 60% in the proximal small intestine, 39% in the mid-intestine, and 31% in the distal small intestine. Glutamine suppressed the oxidation of glucose carbon that entered the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle; this was determined using CO2 ratios derived from acetate and glucose isotopes. In cells from the proximal segment, the probability that carbon entering the cycle would complete one full turn was reduced by glutamine from 0.77 to 0.28. The entry of glucose-derived pyruvate into the TCA cycle did not appear to be influenced by the presence of glutamine, however. Glutamine had no influence on the proportion of glucose metabolism that occurred via the pentose phosphate pathway (which averaged 5% or less), but reduced flux of carbon through pyruvate carboxylase relative to flux through pyruvate dehydrogenase from 40% to 9% in cells from the proximal segment. These data suggest that, in the presence of glutamine, the fate of pyruvate carbon (derived from glucose or elsewhere) entering the TCA cycle is altered from that of oxidation to anaplerosis and subsequent efflux of TCA cycle intermediates into newly synthesized compounds.