ENERGY METABOLISM BY TROUT RED BLOOD CELLS: SUBSTRATE UTILISATION

The present study investigates energy metabolism by trout red blood cells. It is shown that they are able to use pyruvate at physiological concentrations as an aerobic source of energy. Moreover, microcalorimetric data suggest that trout erythrocytes are also able to use internal substrates, at least when maintained in vitro. Although the actual nature of these substrates has not been elucidated, glycogen appears to be the most probable. The relationship between heat dissipation and oxygen consumption suggests that most of the oxygen is used to oxidize substrates, and the inhibition of respiratory activity by antimycin A indicates that there is no substantial utilisation of non-respiratory oxygen. However, the oxygen uptake by these cells does not appear to be related to substrate utilisation, measured from transformation of labelled molecules (either pyruvate or glucose); this may be due to mixing of labelled compounds with non-labelled molecules in the intracellular pools, because of the low metabolic rate of these cells.