Distribution of metabolic fluxes towards glycerol phosphate and L-lactate from fructose 1,6-biphosphate in vitro: effect of glycerol phosphate dehydrogenase.

A metabolic system in vitro, which converts fructose 1,6-biphosphate into the two alternative products, lactate and glycerol phosphate, was designed to study the distribution of metabolic fluxes and, specifically, the control of glycerol phosphate production rate in rat muscle extract. Experiments were carried out at several protein concentrations by dilution of rat muscle extract, showing non-linear behaviours of flux versus protein concentration. These were hyperbolic for glycerol phosphate and logarithmic for L-lactate. The influence of the flux towards any alternate product on the rate giving the other was studied by stimulation of each. Results obtained show that in this system, flux towards glycerol phosphate is not affected by lactate production and the same occurs for the contrary case. Glycerol phosphate dehydrogenase seems to be the only enzyme in this system whose activity controls the flux towards glycerol phosphate.