Erythrocyte Glut1 Triggers Dehydroascorbic Acid Uptake in Mammals Unable to Synthesize Vitamin C Ame´ lie Montel-Hagen,1 Sandrina Kinet,1 Nicolas Manel,1,4 Ce´ dric Mongellaz,1 Rainer Prohaska,2 Jean-Luc Battini,1 Jean Delaunay,3 Marc Sitbon,1 and Naomi Taylor1,* 1Institut de Ge´ ne´ tique Mole´ culaire de Montpellier, CNRS, Universite´ Montpellier I and II, Montpellier, France 2Max F. Perutz Laboratories, Department of Medical Biochemistry, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna Biocenter, Vienna A-1030, Austria 3He´ matologie, Hoˆ pital de Biceˆ tre, APHP, INSERM U779, Faculte´ de Me´ decine Paris-Sud, Le Kremlin-Biceˆ tre, France 4Present address: Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA. *Correspondence:
[email protected] DOI 10.1016/j.cell.2008.01.042 SUMMARY Glut1 also transports L-dehydroascorbic acid (DHA), an oxi- dized intermediate of ascorbic acid (AA) (Bianchi and Rose, Of all cells, human erythrocytes express the highest 1986; Rumsey et al., 1997; Vera et al., 1993). DHA entry via Glut level of the Glut1 glucose transporter. However, the family transporters was initially investigated because of the struc- regulation and function of Glut1 during erythropoiesis tural similarities between DHA and glucose. Once transported into are not known. Here, we report that glucose transport the cell, DHA is immediately reduced to AA allowing a recycling actually decreases during human erythropoiesis de- of ascorbate (May, 1998). The uptake of AA into cells is mediated spite a >3-log increase in Glut1 transcripts. In con- by a distinct class of transporters; sodium-dependent vitamin C trast, Glut1-mediated transport of L-dehydroascorbic transporters (SVCT1 and SVCT2) whose expression profiles differ from those of Glut family members (Tsukaguchi et al., 1999).