Suspension of medullary thick ascending limb tubules from the rabbit kidney.

A procedure for isolating a suspension of tubules derived from the rabbit medullary thick ascending limb is described. The purity of the preparation was assessed by microscopy and enzyme assays and the viability of the preparation was assessed by measuring oxygen consumption. Microscopy revealed that the suspension contains 95% thick ascending limbs and that the isolation procedure preserves the structure of the epithelium except for the loss of the basement membrane. The preparation had a high activity of calcitonin-sensitive adenylate cyclase, a marker enzyme for the medullary thick ascending limb. Control oxygen consumption was considerably higher than that reported for proximal tubules in the literature, and nystatin or carbonyl cyanide p-trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone addition produced a more than 100% increase in oxygen consumption. Furosemide inhibited the oxygen consumption by 43% and ouabain inhibited it by 42%. Furosemide inhibited sodium chloride entry without directly affecting the Na-K-ATPase or cellular metabolism. Chloride removal depressed oxygen consumption to the same extent as furosemide, but some of this action was through direct inhibition of cellular metabolism.