Glucose is one of the substrates that is controlled with the most efficient hormonal mechanisms in higher organisms. The presence of tissues such as the central nervous system which, under normal conditions, depend solely on glucose as substrate, and the sporadic type of food intake with periods of fasting of various lengths in the mammalians necessitate that the distribution of energy-rich substrates among various tissues be continuously adjusted by changes in the secretion of a number of hormones. The efficiency of this system is evidenced by the stability of the blood glucose level in man, in whom after a carbohydrate-rich meal more than 70% of the glucose that has been ingested will be retained in the liver during a single passage of portal blood, resulting in only small changes of the glucose concentration in peripheral blood. Likewise, periods of fasting up to24–36 h are followed by modest to minimal reductions of the blood glucose level, the liver now supplying the circulation with the hexose.

The study of differentiation is concerned with the analysis of the processes responsible for ‘the cellular changes in macromolecular synthesis and composition, patterned in time and space and resulting in specialized functions, forms and organization’ (Moscona, 1973).