Limitations of the mass isotopomer distribution analysis of glucose to study gluconeogenesis. Substrate cycling between glycerol and triose phosphates in liver

Mass isotopomer distribution analysis allows studying the synthesis of polymeric biomolecules from 15N, 13C-, or 2H-labeled monomeric units in the presence of unlabeled polymer. The mass isotopomer distribution of the polymer allows calculation of (i) the enrichment of the monomer and (ii) the dilution of the newly synthesized polymer by unlabeled polymer. We tested the conditions of validity of mass isotopomer distribution analysis of glucose labeled from [U-13C3]lactate, [U-13C3]glycerol, and [2-13C]glycerol to calculate the fraction of glucose production derived from gluconeogenesis. Experiments were conducted in perfused rat livers, live rats, and live monkeys. In all cases, [13C]glycerol yielded labeling patterns of glucose that are incompatible with glucose being formed from a single pool of triose phosphates of constant enrichment. We show evidence that variations in the enrichment of triose phosphates result from (i) the large fractional decrease in physiological glycerol concentration in a single pass through the liver and (ii) the release of unlabeled glycerol by the liver, presumably via lipase activity. This zonation of glycerol metabolism in liver results in the calculation of artifactually low contributions of gluconeogenesis to glucose production when the latter is labeled from [13C]glycerol. In contrast, [U-13C3]lactate appears to be a suitable tracer for mass isotopomer distribution analysis of gluconeogenesis in vivo, but not in the perfused liver. In other perfusion experiments with [2H5]glycerol, we showed that the rat liver releases glycerol molecules containing one to four 2H atoms. This indicates the operation of a substrate cycle between extracellular glycerol and liver triose phosphates, where 2H is lost in the reversible reactions catalyzed by alpha-glycerophosphate dehydrogenase, triose-phosphate isomerase, and glycolytic enzymes. This substrate cycle presumably involves alpha-glycerophosphate hydrolysis.