This study was undertaken to assess the effect of propane-l,2-diol(PD) ingestion on carbohydrate metabolism in female rat erythrocytes. For this purpose, two different groups of adult albino female rats were treated orally with PD at two different dose levels of 73 and 294 mg 100 g-' body wt. The blood samples drawn from the retro-orbital sinus prior to the treatment served as the controls, whereas the treated samples were collected at peak periods (4 and 2 h) 2 and 7 days after the treatment. A single dose of PD was found to elevate levels of blood glucose, lactate, pyruvate and the lactate/pyruvate ratio at the peak periods (P < 0.001) and after 2 days (P < 0.001) in both the groups. A significant ( P < 0.05) increase in the contents of erythrocyte 2,3-diphosphoglycerate (2,3-DPG) was observed only at the peak periods. All these parameters returned to their base level after 7 days of treatment. The activities of hexokinase (HK), 2,3-diphosphoglycerate phosphatase (2,3-DPG Pase), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G-CPD), 6phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (6-PGD) and aldehyde reductase I1 (AR 11) declined markedly, whereas those of pyruvate kinase (PK) and aldose reductase increased as a result of PD ingestion. The changes in the activities of 2,3-DPG Pase and LDH were persistant up to 8 days post-treatment. The ['4C]glucose flux through glycolysis and the hexose monophosphate shunt pathway in erythrocytes was found to be lowered ( P < 0.001) in response to PD treatment. The present work revealed that a single oral dose of PD was capable of producing significant alterations in carbohydrate metabolism in female rat erythrocytes.
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EXPERIMENTAL
All the chemicals used for the study were of analytical grade. Propane-l,2-diol was obtained from BDH (99% pure mol. wt. = 76.1, density = 1.036; 1 ml of 28.4% aqueous solution contained 294 mg of PD, equivalent to 38.66 mmol kg-' when administered as 1 ml 100 g-' body wt.). All the substrates, coenzymes and enzymes were from Sigma Chemical Company. [ ''C]Glucose