Effect of Prolonged Consumption of Pemmican Survival Ration on Some Aspects of the Intermediary Metabolism of Rat Liver Tissue

¹ From the Biochemistry Department, Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory, APO 731, Seattle, Washington

The effect of prolonged feeding (3–5 months) of pemmican on some aspects of the in vitro metabolism of liver tissue was investigated. The endogenous metabolism of liver slices and homogenates was significantly increased by pemmican, probably due to an increase in the amount of readily metabolizable substrate. Utilizing mitochondrial preparations, it was found that with all substrates studied, except glutamate, -ketoglutarate and succinate, the respiratory rate was not affected by the previous diet in the absence of added cytochrome c and diphosphopyridine nucleotide. The three substrates mentioned were oxidized at significantly lower rates in the pemmican group. Upon the addition of cytochrome c and diphosphopyridine nucleotide the qo₂ of glutamate, -ketoglutarate, and succinate was returned to the normal value.