Sugar transport in Trypanosoma brucei: a suitable kinetic probe

Abstract
A transport assay has been developed for use in the investigation of 1-deoxy-D-glucose uptake in trypanosomes. 1-Deoxy-D-glucose has high affinity for the trypanosome sugar transport system (net influx K m = 4.03 ± 0.42 mM; V = 0.052 ± 0.005 mM·s. D-Glucose oxidation is competitively inhibited by 1-deoxy-Dglucose. However, we show that 1-deoxy-D-glucose is not a substrate for metabolism and that the competition occurs because of interaction at the transport system. D-Glucose competitively inhibits 1-deoxy-D-glucose influx.