Active transport of L-glucose by isolated small intestine of the dietary-restricted rat.

1. The effect of semistarvation and complete starvation (sufficient to produce a loss of about 32 and 25% respectively of initial body weight) on the active transport of L-glucose has been studied by the use of sacs of everted mid-small intestine of rats. The animals were allowed free access to water.2. Sacs from animals on a restricted diet transported L-glucose against its concentration gradient, but sacs from fully fed rats did not. Even when sacs from fully fed rats were distended sufficiently to cause them to lose serosal volume, the L-glucose concentration in the final serosal fluid was never greater than that in the final mucosal fluid.3. The L-glucose active transport was independent of net water movement, needed oxygen, was not demonstrable at 27 degrees C, and required Na ions at a concentration of 83 mM or greater. It could be completely inhibited by 10(-6)M phlorrhizin, or 10 mM L-histidine, or 1.39 mM D-glucose. Phlorrhizin at a concentration of 10(-8)M reduced, but did not prevent, L-glucose active transport.4. It seems probable that L-glucose active transport is mediated by the mechanism that actively transports D-glucose.5. Un-incubated mid-small intestine of fully fed rats contained 37.8 mg D-glucose/100 g wet wt. of tissue, whereas semistarved intestine had only 10.8 mg D-glucose/100 g. The lack of demonstrable active transport of L-glucose by normal intestine may possibly have been caused, at least in part, by inhibition of the process by endogenous D-glucose.6. There appeared to be no metabolism of L-glucose by rat intestine, nor conversion to the D-form.7. The hypothesis that sugars require the D-pyranose ring structure for active absorption is no longer tenable.