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Journal of Experimental Biology 35,611-625 (1958)
Published by Company of Biologists 1958

The Absorption and Metabolism of Some Sugars in the Locust, Schistocerca Gregaria (Forsk.)

J. E. TREHERNE ¹

¹ A.R.C. Unit of Insect Physiology, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge

1. The uptake of ¹⁴C-labelled glucose, mannose and fructose from the alimentary canal of Schistocerca gregaria (Forsk.) has been studied using the dye Amaranth as a reference substance.

2. Absorption was confined to the mid-gut, the proportion absorbed by the caeca depending on the type of sugar and its concentration in the gut lumen.

3. The absorbed sugars were converted, in varying degrees, to trehalose which accumulated in the haemolymph. The extent of the conversion appeared to parallel the rate of absorption of the sugars at the various concentrations.

4. The sugars passed through the gut wall at similar rates in experiments in which the isolated alimentary canal was suspended in a large volume of circulating poisoned saline. The passage through the gut wall under these conditions was equivalent to the rapid absorption obtained in vivo when there was a rapid conversion to trehalose.

5. It is suggested that these observations support the hypothesis that the sugars are absorbed by diffusion across the gut wall and that the process is facilitated by the rapid conversion to trehalose in the haemolymph, which tends to maintain a steep concentration gradient.

6. At very low concentrations in the gut lumen, glucose was at a similar level to the relatively small amount of glucose in equilibrium with the trehalose in the haemolymph. When the specific activity of injected ¹⁴C in the haemolymph approximated to that in the gut lumen the absorption of the labelled glucose from the mid-gut caeca was reduced at very low concentrations. Thus at these levels it is suggested that most of the absorption of labelled glucose can be attributed to an exchange with that in the haemolymph. At a concentration of 0.01 M/1. the proportion exchanging became negligibly small and the absorption of the labelled glucose molecules approximated to the net glucose absorption.