Distribution of glucose-6-phosphatase activity in mice studied by in vitro whole-body autoradiography

The distribution of the glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) activities was demonstrated by in vitro whole-body autoradiography. Relatively high activities were observed in the liver, kidney, and small intestine of mice. However, these organs did not exhibit uniform activity throughout. The activity of the liver was found heterogeneous, but that of the duodenum and jejunum were higher than for those of other parts of the intestine. G6Pase activity was higher in the cortex of the kidney than in the medulla. In addition to these observations, it was also found that the skeletal system had high radioactivity. These results were similar to those from biochemical experiments. This method of in vitro whole-body autoradiography would seem to be of value in studying macroscopic distributions of other enzyme activities in organs as well as in whole-body.