Glomerular Metabolic Changes in Compensatory Renal Hypertrophy

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Abstract
Many stimuli are known to induce an increase in kidney weight in the rat, such as metabolic acidosis (Dies & Lotspeich, 1967), protein overload (Baxter & Cotzias, 1949) and after unilateral, nephrectomy (Malt, 1969). Very little attention has been paid in these conditions to the glomeruli, which represent 5 % only of the kidney weight and account therefore for a very small part of the whole kidney metabolism. In a previous publication (Gregoire, 1971), we showed that, after 3 days of intra-peritoneal injection of bovine albumin, an experimental situation which is accompanied by a 30 % increase in kidney weight and by heavy proteinuria, there occurs a large increase of glomerular glucose-6-P dehydrogenase and β-glucuronidase. The same changes were observed, but to a smaller extent, in the proximal tubules. In a preliminary study, we reported that the oxygen uptake of these glomeruli increased of about 50 % (Gregoire, 1975a) and that glomerular weight increased also but to a much smaller extent. It seemed therefore of interest to investigate the same parameters in another experimental situation where glomerular metabolism might be expected to be stimulated, but which is not accompanied by proteinuria, i.e. compensatory renal hypertrophy occurring after the removal of one kidney.