The perfused rat hindlimb is suitable for skeletal muscle glucose transport measurements.. Wojtaszewski, Jorgen F. P, Allan B. Jakobsen, Thorkil Ploug, and Erik A. Richter. Copenhagen Muscle Research Centre, August Krogh Institute and Dept. of Medical Physiology, The Panum Institute, Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark.
APStracts 4:0205E, 1997.
It has been postulated that the perfused rat hindlimb is unsuitable for measurements of muscle glucose transport (Hansen et al., Am.J.Physiol. 37, C30-C35, 1995). The aim of the present study therefore was to critically evaluate the suitability of this preparation for glucose transport measurements using the extracellular marker mannitol and the glucose analogues 3-O-methyl-D -glucose or 2-deoxy-D-glucose. In all three muscle fiber types studied, the rate of 2-deoxy-D-glucose uptake during perfusion was linear from 1 to 40 minutes during maximal insulin stimulation and from 1 to 15 minutes during maximal electrical stimulation. Uptake of 2-deoxy-D-glucose was not increased by an increase in perfusate flow. Combined stimulation with a maximal insulin concentration and electrical stimulation elicited additive effects on 2-deoxy-D-glucose uptake in slow and fast twitch oxidative but not in fast twitch glycolytic muscle fibers. Furthermore, in muscles having high glucose transport capacities 3-O-methyl-D-glucose is less suitable than 2 -deoxy-D-glucose because of rapidly developing non-linearity of accumulation. Our findings clearly demonstrate that the perfused hindlimb is suitable for measurements of muscle glucose transport and that the most feasible glucose analogue for this purpose is 2-deoxy -D-glucose.

Received 2 June 1997; accepted in final form 16 September 1997.
APS Manuscript Number E254-7.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Endocrinol. Metab.).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1997 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 7 October 1997