Cytosolic reducing power preserves glutamate in retina.

Du, Jianhai; Cleghorn, Whitney; Contreras, Laura; Linton, Jonathan D; Chan, Guy C-K; Chertov, Andrei O; Saheki, Takeyori; Govindaraju, Viren et al. · Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · 2013

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Glutamate in neurons is an important excitatory neurotransmitter, but it also is a key metabolite. We investigated how glutamate in a neural tissue is protected from catabolism. Flux analysis using (13)C-labeled fuels revealed that retinas use activities of the malate aspartate shuttle to protect >98% of their glutamate from oxidation in mitochondria. Isolation of glutamate from the oxidative pathway relies on cytosolic NADH/NAD(+), which is influenced by extracellular glucose, lactate, and pyruvate.

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