Postsecretory reabsorption of urate in man.

These results are consistent with a model for renal tubular transport of urate in which there is reabsorption of both filtered and secreted urate. Urate secretion greatly exceeds total urate excretion, and most secreted urate is reabsorbed. At least a portion of urate reabsorption occurs at a site distal to or coextensive with the urate secretory site. There appear to be at least two distinct reabsorptive mechanisms for urate. The results of the flow rate and vasopressin studies are consistent with the hypothesis that urate reabsorption occurs in both the distal and the proximal tubule in man. The distal reabsorptive site appears to be quite small. It may be passive since it does not appear to be inhibited by uricosuric drugs. This reabsorptive site may account for less than 15% of total urate reabsorption. Both volume expansion and probenecid may inhibit urate absorption only in the proximal tubule. Thus reabsorption in the proximal tubule coud account for more than 90% of total urate reabsorption. Reabsorption at the postulated collecting duct reabsorptive site appears to be too small in magnitude to account for all reabsorptions of secreted urate. This could be explained if the reabsorptive site in the proximal tubule is coextensive with or distal to the secretory site. Alternatively, there might be two reabsorptive sites in the proximal tubule: a presecretory site accounting for the reabsorption of most filtered urate, and a site either coextensive or distal to the secretory site accounting for a major component of reabsorption of secreted urate. Finally urate reabsorption would also take place in the collecting duct, perhaps at a passive, flow-dependent site.