Mg-ATP infusion in vivo has been reported to be beneficial both to organ function and survival rate in various models of shock. Moreover, a large variety of metabolic effects has been shown to occur in several tissues due to purinergic receptor activation. In the present work we studied the effects of exogenous Mg-ATP in rat liver cells perifused with dihydroxyacetone to investigate simultaneously gluconeogenetic and glycolytic pathways. We found a significant effect on oxidative phosphorylation as characterized by a decrease in oxygen consumption rate and in the cellular ATP-to-ADP ratio associated with an increase in lactate-to-pyruvate ratio. In addition, exogenous Mg-ATP induced rapid and reversible inhibition of both gluconeogenesis and glycolysis. The main effect on gluconeogenesis was located at the level of the fructose cycle, whereas the decrease in glycolysis was due to a strong inhibition of pyruvate kinase. Although pyruvate kinase inhibition induced by exogenous Mg-ATP was allosteric when assessed in vitro after enzyme extraction, we found a large decrease in the apparent maximal velocity when kinetics were assessed in vivo in intact perifused hepatocytes. This newly described short-term regulation of pyruvate kinase occurs only in the intact cell and may open new potentials for the pharmacological regulation of pyruvate kinase in vivo.Numerous publications have emphasized the beneficial role of Mg-ATP infusion in various models of shock or severe trauma in animals. Dysfunction of heart (1), kidney (2), muscle (3), endothelial (4), and immune cells (5, 6) are all improved by this treatment, which significantly increases the survival rate. Because such a benefit was independent of hemodynamic status (4, 7), a metabolic mechanism was proposed (8). Because the liver plays a central role in the metabolic response to such severe illnesses, it may represent a major target for Mg-ATP (9, 10).It is well known that purinergic receptor activation is responsible for a large variety of metabolic effects (11-24). ATP or adenosine or several analogues of purinergic receptors have been noted to affect liver glucose metabolism: i.e. stimulation of glycogenolysis (12, 13), increase (19,25,26) or decrease (11) of gluconeogenesis, and decrease of glycolysis (25). These effects have been related to a cAMP-dependent mechanism (12), a cAMP-independent inositol 3-phosphate/calcium-mediated signaling (13,14,16,18,21,23), a phospholipase C activation (18), or a transcriptional effect (25). It must be noted, however, that if some effects are shared among the adenine nucleotide family, others appear to be specific (12,14,18), suggesting that different signaling pathways may be involved.Because the beneficial effects were observed in vivo with Mg-ATP but not with adenosine (8, 27), we investigated the metabolic effects of exogenous Mg-ATP in rat liver cells perifused with DHA.1 Besides a significant effect on oxidative phosphorylation and on gluconeogenesis, we found that Mg-ATP was responsible for a large inhibition of pyruva...