MOVEMENTS OF MONOSACCHARIDES BETWEEN BLOOD AND TISSUES OF VASCULARLY PERFUSED SMALL-INTESTINE

1. A method involving the analysis of pulse transients of the vascular concentrations of test sugar and extracellular marker has been used to study the movements of non‐metabolized sugars between the cells and vascular fluid of the vascularly perfused small intestine of R. ridibunda. Reasons are given for supposing that the method does properly measure the net entry of sugars into a cellular compartment that includes at least the epithelium. 2. It is found that while the glucose analogues, 3‐O‐methyl‐D‐glucose (3MG) and 2‐deoxy‐D‐glucose (2)DG) are able to enter a cellular compartment when they are added to the vascular bed, alpha‐methyl‐D‐glucoside (alpha MG) is able to enter the compartment only at a very slow rate from the vascular bed. In contrast, 3MG and alaph MG are well absorbed from the lumen whereas the inward permeability of 2DG across the lumen face of the epithelium is very low and, unlike 3MG and alpha MG, is not influenced by the presence in the lumen of other transported sugars. 3. The presence of phlorizin in the intestinal lumen increases the flux of alpha MG and of 3MG in the direction vascular bed‐‐bulk phase of lumen. Reasons are given for supposing that the movement of sugars from the vascular bed into the lumen may involve a cellular route but occurs, at least in part, through a paracellular, extracellular route. 4. The exit of monosaccharides that have been loaded previously into the epithelium either from the lumen or from the vascular bed has been investigated. 3MG washes out rapidly into the vascular bed and the exit is stimulated by the addition of D‐glucose to the intestinal lumen and by the addition of 2DG, but not alpha MG, to the arterial infusate. In contrast, alpha MG, loaded into the epithelium from the lumen, washes out of the cells only slowly into the vascular bed, so that even with high rates of vascular perfusion alpha MG accumulates within the tissue. The sustained accumulation of alpha MG implies that not only is the permeability for exit into the blood restricted for this sugar, but also the permeability is low across the brush border in an outward direction, cell to lumen ('lobster pot effect'). The wash‐out of 3MG into the vascular effluent is sufficently rapid that only in the absence of vascular perfusion is 3MG accumulated within the tissue. 5. The contrasting properties of the monosaccharide transport systems accessible from the intestinal lumen and the vascular bed respectively are discussed in relation to the problems of epithelial transport of monosaccharide. © 1979 The Physiological Society