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Abstract

A brush border preparation from rabbit renal tubules containing a high yield of vesicles has been used to study the transfer of D-glucose through the brush border membrane. In the presence of an Na⁺ gradient across the vesicular membrane, the vesicles could concentrate d-glucose to a factor of 1.5, whereas in the absence of an Na⁺ gradient, only equilibrium with the medium was achieved. Two types of transfer could be distinguished by their requirement of Na⁺, their sensitivity to phlorizin and their pH optimum. The Na⁺-independent transfer was about 100 times less sensitive to phlorizin than the Na⁺-dependent path and exhibited a pH optimum between 7 and 8, whereas the Na⁺-dependent transfer was highest at a pH between 8 and 9.

The brush border preparation could be freed of most of the contaminating material derived from the basal and lateral tubular cell membrane by a discontinuous density gradient centrifugation. It still showed both forms of transfer to a similar extent, indicating that both are located in the brush border membrane.
A study of the sensitivity of D-glucose transfer to phlorizin, in the presence and absence of Na⁺ at different temperature, suggests a single carrier species functioning in two interchangeable conformational states with different affinities for phlorizin rather than two transfer systems working independently.