Nicotinamide labeled, exchange

Figure 7 shows the response of the redox potential in a perfused hamster liver to the addition of 45 mN ethanol. Instead of the vitro labeling strategy Just described. the pyridine nucleotide pools in this hamster liver were labeled vivo by intraperitoneal injection of 35 mg [5- C] nicotinamide 5 hours prior to sacrifice. The bottom two spectra (2.6 min and 12.8 min) were obtained prior to addition of ethanol. They show resonances from labeled NAD, natural abundance glycogen and natural abundance choline methyl groups of phospholipids but no resonance from reduced pyridine nucleotides. After addition of 45 mM 10% [1- C] ethanol (at 17.9 min), resonances from C-1 of ethanol and NADH are detectable. These data demonstrate that the pyridine nucleotide pools labeled by intraperitoneal injection are metabolically active and that addition of 45 mN ethanol results in a marked change in the redox potential of the liver as measured by NNR. Furthermore, the observation of separate resonances for the oxidized and reduced pyridine nucleotides indicates that chemical exchange between oxidized and reduced forms is slow on the NNR time scale, and demonstrate that NNR may be used to quantitate the redox potential of free pyridine nucleotides situ. 

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