Studies on the existence of a pathway in liver and muscle for the conversion of glucose into glycogen without glucose 6-phosphate as an intermediate.

Mixtures of (14)C-labelled glucose plus pyruvate were incubated either with rat diaphragm or slices of rat liver. Incorporation of glucose carbon into glycogen was compared with its incorporation into glucose 6-phosphate relative to the incorporation of pyruvate carbon into these metabolic products. There was no preferential incorporation of glucose carbon relative to pyruvate carbon into glycogen compared with glucose 6-phosphate in the liver slices, but there was in diaphragm. On the assumption that glucose 6-phosphate is a necessary intermediate in the conversion of pyruvate carbon into glycogen, this is evidence for the existence in muscle, but not in liver, of more than one pool of glucose 6-phosphate or of a pathway from glucose to glycogen without glucose 6-phosphate as an intermediate. Galactose carbon, relative to pyruvate carbon, was preferentially incorporated into liver glycogen, so that a substrate converted in liver into glycogen without glucose 6-phosphate as an intermediate could be detected by this approach.