Dissociation of ammoniagenic enzyme adaptation in rat S1 proximal tubules and ammonium excretion response.

We measured ammonium production rates, phosphate-dependent glutaminase (PDG) activity, and glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) activity in microdissected S1 proximal tubules of rats to investigate the role of adaptations of PDG activity and GDH activity in response to a step increase in acid intake. In vivo ammonium excretion increased much more rapidly than did single-tubule ammonium production in vitro or ammoniagenic enzyme activities measured in microdissected tubules, manifesting an 85-fold increase in the first 24 h. In vitro ammonium production rates in microdissected tubules rose only twofold in the first 24 h, fourfold by day 2, and fivefold by day 4 of acid loading. The adaptation of PDG activity paralleled the increase in single-tubule ammoniagenic capacity measured in vitro. GDH activity, on the other hand, did not change significantly even after 4 days of acid loading. From these observations, we conclude that 1) the adaptation of in vitro ammoniagenic capacity in S1 proximal tubules is temporally associated with an adaptation in PDG activity and not GDH activity, and 2) a major portion of the increased ammonium excretion seen in the first 24 h is due to factors other than an adaptive increase in ammoniagenic enzyme activity.