Brookhaven National Laboratory Report BNL-1412

The experiments to be described were undertaken to correlate the metabolism of glucose by muscle with the transport of phosphate across the cell membrane, and the relative effects of insulin on the two processes. The isolated rat diaphragm was used as the experimental tissue, and P-32 phosphate and glucose uniformly labeled with C-14 were used as tracers. The selection of diaphragm was based on the finding first made by Gemmill (1) that the addition of the insulin to an incubation medium containing glucose resulted in an increased deposition of glycogen by diaphragms in vitro. Villee and Hastings have confirmed Gemmill's findings with C14 labeled glucose, and have demonstrated that the elevated R. Q. in the presence of added insulin noted by Gemmill is accompanied by an increased oxidation of glucose derived from the medium. An increased turnover of the acid-soluble P compounds of the resting striated muscle of cats under the influence of injected insulin has been reported by Sacks (3) and similar observations have been made by Goranson, Hamilton, and Haist (4) in rats. It has also been shown (5) that the administration of glucose to the fasted cat along P-32 leads to an accumulation of the tracer in the glucose-6-phosphate fraction of muscle