Page 194 - The Biochemistry of Inorganic Polyphosphates

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Peculiarities of polyphosphate metabolism
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Table 8.9 PolyPs in some animal tissues.
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Tissue PolyP (mg P (g wet biomass) ) Reference
Rat liver, nuclei 100–200 Mansurova et al., 1975a
Rat liver 1–2 Mansurova et al., 1975a
Rat liver 3–5 Gabel and Thomas, 1971
Rat brain 12.8–15.0 Gabel and Thomas, 1971
Rat brain 10–15 Kulaev and Rozhanets, 1973
Bovine brain 2.95 Gabel and Thomas, 1971
Bovine liver 2.24 Gabel and Thomas, 1971
Bovine pancreas 2.10 Gabel and Thomas, 1971
Bovine kidney 1.18 Gabel and Thomas, 1971
Bovine spleen 1.35 Gabel and Thomas, 1971
Rabbit erythrocytes 0.74 Gabel and Thomas, 1971

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Table 8.10 PolyP contents of certain insects (µM P (g body weight) ).
Image of Tropical Tropical cockroach
Phosphorus Mulberry Mosquito granary cockroach insects without
compounds moth larva larva weevil intact insects intestines
13.30 9.05 13.40 8.40 3.26
P i
Acid-soluble 0.04 0.09 0.06 0.45 0.51
PolyP
Acid-insoluble 0.17 0.01 0.005 0.03 0.03
PolyP
ATP 2.05 2.00 2.46 — —

still little studied. One of the reasons for this is the very small amounts of PolyPs in animal
cells. The concentrations of PolyPs range from 10 to 100 µM (expressed as P i ), while the
chain lengths may be 100 to 1000 residues (Kornberg, 1999). Table 8.9 shows some earlier
data reported on the content of PolyPs in some animal tissues.
PolyPs have been found in insects (Kulaev et al., 1974), and not only in intact insects but
also in those with removed intestines (Table 8.10). Hence, its presence in these organisms
does not seem related to intestinal microorganisms. It should be noted that the amounts of
PolyPs in insects, as in mammals, are less than the amount of ATP.
The precise and sensitive methods of PolyP assay, including enzymatic methods, have
served to confirm the presence of PolyPs in a great variety of animal tissues and cell com-
partments and to obtain interesting data on the dynamics of PolyP formation and utiliza-
tion in animal cells (Cowling and Birnboim, 1994; Kumble and Kornberg, 1995; Lorenz
et al., 1997a,b; Schr¨oder et al., 1999). This polymer was found in different sub-cellular
fractions, including nuclei (Penniall and Griffin, 1964; Griffin et al., 1965; Kumble and
Kornberg, 1995), microsomes and mitochondria (Kumble and Kornberg, 1995; Kornberg
et al., 1999), membranes (Reusch, 1989) and lysosomes (Pisoni and Lindley, 1992). In