Search for compartments of glucose metabolism in the microinjected frog oocyte

Microinjection of frog oocytes allows the modification of intracellular levels of substrates, intermediates, cofactors and enzymes. Use of labeled glucose at specific positions has led us to conclude that oocytes utilize glucose mainly for glycogen synthesis and to a lesser extent for the pentose-P pathway. Glycolysis, glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis are not operative in these cells. The subject of compartmentation of glucose utilization has been addressed in this paper. First, we show that microinjection of glucose results in a 30-fold increase of carbon incorporation into glycogen when compared to oocytes incubated at saturating glucose concentrations. On the other hand, carbon incorporation into CO2, remains at about the same levels in both conditions Second, microinjection of NADP+ increases CO2 release and inhibits glycogen synthesis from glucose. Third, co-injection of unlabeled intermediates affects differentially glycogen synthesis and CO2 production from labeled glucose. Finally, microinjection of pure yeast hexokinase stimulates markedly 14CO2 release and inhibits glycogen synthesis. We conclude that two separate pools of glucose-6-P exists in oocytes: one pool is committed to the pathway of glycogen synthesis while a second pool serves as substrate for the operation of the pentose-P pathway.