Patterns of variation in glycogen, free glucose and lactate in organs of supercooled hatchling painted turtles (Chrysemys picta)

Hatchling painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) typically spend their first winter of life in a shallow, subterranean hibernaculum (the natal nest), where they may be exposed for extended periods to ice and cold. The key to their survival seems to be to avoid freezing and to sustain a state of supercooling. As temperature declines below 0 degrees C, however, the heart of an unfrozen turtle beats progressively slower, the diminished perfusion of peripheral tissues with blood induces a functional hypoxia, and anaerobic glycolysis assumes ever greater importance as a source of ATP. We hypothesized that diminished circulatory function in supercooled turtles also reduces the delivery of metabolic substrates to peripheral tissues from central stores in the liver, so that the tissues depend increasingly on endogenous stores to fuel their metabolism. We discovered in the current investigation that part of the glycogen reserve in hearts and brains of hatchlings is mobilized during the first 10 days of exposure to -6 degrees C but that glucose from hepatic glycogen supports metabolism of the organs thereafter. Hatchlings that were held at -6 degrees C for 10 days and then at +3 degrees C for another 10 days were able to reconstitute some of the reserve of glycogen in heart and liver but not the glycogen reserve in brain. Patterns of accumulation of lactate in individual organs were very similar to those reported for whole animals in a companion study, and point to a high degree of reliance on anaerobic metabolism at -6 degrees C and to a lesser degree of reliance on anaerobiosis at higher subzero temperatures. Lactate had returned to baseline levels in organs of animals that were held for 10 days at -6 degrees C and for another 10 days at +3 degrees C, but free glucose remained elevated. Indeed, carbohydrate metabolism probably does not return to the pre-exposure state in any of the major organs until well after the exposure to subzero temperatures has ended, circulatory sufficiency has been restored, and aerobic respiration has fully supplanted anaerobic respiration as a source of ATP.