Facilitated hexose transporters: new perspectives on form and function

GLUT7: a new intestinal facilitated hexose transporter

The very last member of the SLC2A gene family of facilitated hexose transporters to be cloned was SLC2A7 (hGLUT7). It has been assigned to the class II of the GLUT family on the basis of sequence similarity, and its closest family member is GLUT5, an intestinal fructose transporter. GLUT7 is primarily expressed in the small intestine and colon, although mRNA has been detected in the testis and prostate as well. The protein is expressed in the apical membrane of the small intestine and colon, and it has a high affinity (<0.5 mM) for glucose and fructose. The abundance of the protein in the small intestine does change in parallel with the dietary carbohydrate. However, the distribution of GLUT7 along the small intestine does not entirely match with the availability of glucose and fructose, suggesting that the physiological substrate for this transporter has yet to be identified. Unlike GLUT13, the proton-coupled myoinositol transporter (HMIT), there is no evidence for the coupling of protons to the hexose movement via GLUT7. One area of study in which GLUT7 has provided a useful comparison with GLUT1 has been in the development of the hypothesis that the facilitated hexose transporters may have a selectivity filter at the exofacial opening of the translocation pore, which helps to determine which hexoses can be transported. If substantiated, the elucidation of this mechanism may prove useful in the design of hexose analogs for use in cancer imaging and therapeutics.

Regulation of the fructose transporter GLUT5 in health and disease

Fructose is now such an important component of human diets that increasing attention is being focused on the fructose transporter GLUT5. In this review, we describe the regulation of GLUT5 not only in the intestine and testis, where it was first discovered, but also in the kidney, skeletal muscle, fat tissue, and brain where increasing numbers of cell types have been found to have GLUT5. GLUT5 expression levels and fructose uptake rates are also significantly affected by diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and inflammation and seem to be induced during carcinogenesis, particularly in the mammary glands. We end by highlighting research areas that should yield information needed to better understand the role of GLUT5 during normal development, metabolic disturbances, and cancer.

The facilitative glucose transporter GLUT3: 20 years of distinction

Glucose metabolism is vital to most mammalian cells, and the passage of glucose across cell membranes is facilitated by a family of integral membrane transporter proteins, the GLUTs. There are currently 14 members of the SLC2 family of GLUTs, several of which have been the focus of this series of reviews. The subject of the present review is GLUT3, which, as implied by its name, was the third glucose transporter to be cloned (Kayano T, Fukumoto H, Eddy RL, Fan YS, Byers MG, Shows TB, Bell GI. J Biol Chem 263: 15245-15248, 1988) and was originally designated as the neuronal GLUT. The overriding question that drove the early work on GLUT3 was why would neurons need a separate glucose transporter isoform? What is it about GLUT3 that specifically suits the needs of the highly metabolic and oxidative neuron with its high glucose demand? More recently, GLUT3 has been studied in other cell types with quite specific requirements for glucose, including sperm, preimplantation embryos, circulating white blood cells, and an array of carcinoma cell lines. The last are sufficiently varied and numerous to warrant a review of their own and will not be discussed here. However, for each of these cases, the same questions apply. Thus, the objective of this review is to discuss the properties and tissue and cellular localization of GLUT3 as well as the features of expression, function, and regulation that distinguish it from the rest of its family and make it uniquely suited as the mediator of glucose delivery to these specific cells.

An expression system to screen for inhibitors of parasite glucose transporters

Chemotherapy of parasitic protists is limited by general toxicity, high expense and emergence of resistance to currently available drugs. Thus methods to identify new leads for further drug development are increasingly important. Previously, glucose transporters have been validated as new drug targets for protozoan parasites including Plasmodium falciparum, Leishmania mexicana and Trypanosoma brucei. A recently derived glucose transporter null mutant (Deltalmgt) of L. mexicana was used to functionally express various heterologous glucose transporters including those from T. brucei THT1, P. falciparum PfHT and human GLUT1-resulting in recovery of growth of the Deltalmgt null mutant in glucose replete medium. This heterologous expression system can be employed to screen for compounds that retard growth by inhibiting the expressed glucose transporter. The ability of this expression system to identify specific glucose transporter inhibitors was demonstrated using 3-O-undec-10-enyl-d-glucose, a previously described specific inhibitor of PfHT.

Developmental reprogramming of rat GLUT5 requires glucocorticoid receptor translocation to the nucleus

Fructose consumption has increased dramatically but little is known about mechanisms regulating the intestinal fructose transporter GLUT5 in vivo. In neonatal rats, GLUT5 can be induced only by luminal fructose and only after 14 days of age, unless the gut is primed with dexamethasone prior to fructose perfusion. To elucidate the mechanisms underlying dexamethasone modulation of GLUT5 development, we first identified the receptor mediating its effects then determined whether those effects were genomic. The glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonist RU486 dose-dependently prevented the dexamethasone-mediated effects on body weight, intestinal arginase2 (a known GR-regulated gene) and GLUT5. In contrast, an antagonist of the mineralocorticoid receptor as well as agonists of progesterone (PR) and pregnane-X (PXR) receptors did not block the effects of dexamethasone. These receptor antagonists and agonists had no effect on the intestinal glucose transporter SGLT1. Translocation of the GR into the enterocyte nucleus occurred only in dexamethasone-injected pups perfused with fructose, was accompanied by marked increases in brush border GLUT5 abundance, and was blocked by RU486. A priming duration of approximately 24 h is optimal for induction but actinomycin D injection before dexamethasone priming prevented dexamethasone from allowing luminal fructose to induce GLUT5. Actinomycin D had no effect on dexamethasone-independent fructose-induced increases in glucose-6-phosphatase mRNA abundance, suggesting that it did not prevent fructose-induction of GLUT5, but instead prevented dexamethasone-induced synthesis of an intermediate required by fructose for GLUT5 regulation. In suckling rats < 14 days old, developmental regulation of transporters may involve cross-talk between hormonal signals modulating intestinal maturation and nutrient signals regulating specific transporters.

Metabolic and endocrine profiles in response to systemic infusion of fructose and glucose in rhesus macaques

Diurnal patterns of circulating leptin concentrations are attenuated after consumption of fructose-sweetened beverages compared with glucose-sweetened beverages, likely a result of limited postprandial glucose and insulin excursions after fructose. Differences in postprandial exposure of adipose tissue to peripheral circulating fructose and glucose or in adipocyte metabolism of the two sugars may also be involved. Thus, we compared plasma leptin concentrations after 6-h iv infusions of saline, glucose, or fructose (15 mg/kg.min) in overnight-fasted adult rhesus monkeys (n = 9). Despite increases of plasma fructose from undetectable levels to about 2 mm during fructose infusion, plasma leptin concentrations did not increase, and the change of insulin was only about 10% of that seen during glucose infusion. During glucose infusion, plasma leptin was significantly increased above baseline concentrations by 240 min and increased steadily until the final 480-min time point (change in leptin = +2.5 +/- 0.9 ng/ml, P < 0.001 vs. saline; percent change in leptin = +55 +/- 16%; P < 0.005 vs. saline). Substantial anaerobic metabolism of fructose was suggested by a large increase of steady-state plasma lactate (change in lactate = 1.64 +/- 0.15 mm from baseline), which was significantly greater than that during glucose (+0.53 +/- 0.14 mm) or saline (-0.51 +/- 0.14 mm) infusions (P < 0.001). Therefore, increased adipose exposure to fructose and an active whole-body anaerobic fructose metabolism are not sufficient to increase circulating leptin levels in rhesus monkeys. Thus, additional factors (i.e. limited post-fructose insulin excursions and/or hexose-specific differences in adipocyte metabolism) are likely to underlie disparate effects of fructose and glucose to increase circulating leptin concentrations.

Genetic variant in the glucose transporter type 2 is associated with higher intakes of sugars in two distinct populations

Glucose sensing in the brain has been proposed to be involved in regulating food intake, but the mechanism is not known. Glucose transporter type 2 (GLUT2)-null mice fail to control their food intake in response to glucose, suggesting a potential role for this transporter as a glucose sensor in the brain. Here we show that individuals with a genetic variation in GLUT2 (Thr110Ile) have a higher daily intake of sugars in two distinct populations. In the first population, compared with individuals with the Thr/Thr genotype, carriers of the Ile allele had a significantly higher intake of sugars as assessed from 3-day food records administered on two separate visits (visit 1: 112 +/- 9 vs. 86 +/- 4 g/day, P = 0.01; visit 2: 111 +/- 8 vs. 82 +/- 4 g/day, P = 0.003), demonstrating within-population reproducibility. In a second population, carriers of the Ile allele also reported consuming a significantly greater intake of sugars (131 +/- 5 vs. 115 +/- 3 g/day, P = 0.007) over a 1-mo period as measured from a food frequency questionnaire. GLUT2 genotypes were not associated with fat, protein, or alcohol intake in either population. These observations were consistent across older and younger adults as well as among subjects with early Type 2 diabetes and healthy individuals. Taken together, our findings show that a genetic variation in GLUT2 is associated with habitual consumption of sugars, suggesting an underlying glucose-sensing mechanism that regulates food intake.