Evidence for the presence of oligophosphoglyceroyl-ATP in rat offney.

The inability to account for large systematic variations in total purine nucleotide content of perfused rat hearts led to the demonstration that the soluble adenine nucleotides are in rapid equilibrium with a highly phosphorylated hetero-oligomeric derivative whose structure appears to be 3-phospho[glyceroyl-gamma-triphospho-5'-adenosine-3'-3-phosp ho]4glyceroyl- gamma-triphospho-5'-adenosine [Hutchinson, Morris & Mowbray (1986) Biochem. J. 234, 623-627]. Analogous techniques to those used with hearts for specifically labelling tissue purine nucleotides followed by extration and purification of nucleotides from the trichloroacetic acid-precipitable fraction show the existence of a corresponding rapid equilibrium between ATP and an oligomeric tetraphosphoadenosine derivative in perfused kidneys.