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Innate biochemical responses of rabbit renal proximal convoluted (PCT) and straight (PST) segments following in vitro exposure to anoxia or hypoxia were investigated to delineate the mechanisms responsible for segment-selective injury in vivo. After bulk isolation, suspensions (1 mg/ml) enriched in either PCT or PST were preincubated in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's-Ham's F-12 medium for 1 h before being exposed to either 40 min of anoxia (N2) or 120 min of hypoxia (1% O2) and 1 h of recovery under air-CO2 conditions. After recovery from anoxia, the percent of control values for each viability indicator in PCT and PST, respectively, were as follows: O2 consumption (QO2), 30/50; ATP content, 22/49; K+ content, 60/70; and percent lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release, 66/45. Likewise, following recovery from hypoxia, the percent of control values for PCT and PST, respectively, were as follows: QO2, 50/90; ATP, 16/57; K+, 52/79; LDH, 45/17. These differential responses indicate that PCT segments were innately more susceptible to anoxic and hypoxic injury than PST segments. Because ATP content was significantly higher in PST segments immediately after anoxia and hypoxia, we investigated glucose-dependent responses during anoxia by exposing these segments to 30 min of anoxia in nutrient buffer with or without glucose. Results from these experiments demonstrate that the PST protection from anoxia was glucose dependent because removal of glucose from the nutrient buffers during anoxia abolishes the differential responses between PCT and PST. The in vitro PCT sensitivity observed here contrasts with the PST sensitivity observed following in vivo ischemia, suggesting that hemodynamic factors present in vivo may ultimately determine the overall susceptibility of PST segments in situ.

A new procedure for separately isolating milligram quantities of rabbit renal proximal straight (PST) or convoluted (PCT) tubules is described, and the differential abilities of these segments to utilize glucose as a metabolic substrate are investigated. Separate dissection of the cortical cortices and the outer medullary stripe, followed by collagenase digestion and discontinuous Percoll centrifugation, provide enriched populations (greater than 98% pure) of PCT (37 mg) and PST (14 mg), respectively, per rabbit. The purity of PCT and PST fractions was quantitated morphologically and by comparing the enriched activity of the proximal tubular marker leucine aminopeptidase and deenriched activity of the distal marker hexokinase to previously published values reported from microdissection studies. To investigate glucose-dependent metabolic differences, PCT and PST suspensions (1 mg/ml) were preincubated in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's-Ham's F-12 medium for 1 h before being incubated for 30 min in buffer with or without glucose as the only available metabolic substrate. In glucose-containing buffer, PST segments maintained their oxygen consumption and ATP contents at levels significantly higher than PCT segments. These differential responses between PST and PCT were glucose-dependent because they were abolished when segments were incubated under glucose-free conditions. Because responses in PCT were glucose-independent, these results suggest that PCT cannot utilize glucose to support oxidative metabolism, whereas PST segments can oxidatively metabolize this substrate. These differences in glucose utilization do not correlate with the distribution of glycolytic enzyme activities, suggesting that differential metabolic regulation of these enzymes may determine the ability of each segment to utilize glucose.