The hexose transport system of a fibroblast mutant, DS7, unable to convert glucose 6-phosphate to fructose 6-phosphate ("the phosphoglucose isomerase mutant"), is subject to a specific down-regulation ("curb") evoked by only glucose or D-allose. Neither fructose nor mannose has a curbing effect on this mutant. Further addition of tunicamycin intensified the transport curb on the mutant mediated by glucose or allose. Mannose added to the parental cell line 023 seems able to mimic a glucose-mediated transport curb. In this line, but not the mutant, tunicamycin also intensifies a mannosemediated curb. It seems that the tightening of the allosemediated curb is a function of a specific type of transport regulation and perhaps too of interference with glycosylation of the hexose transporter. Furthermore, this type of curb can be strikingly reversed by shifting the cultures to medium containing fructose.The hamster fibroblast mutant that is highly defective in the enzyme phosphoglucose isomerase (D-glucose-6-phosphate ketolisomerase, EC 5.3.1.9) (the PGI mutant) has been used for studies on metabolic regulation of the hexose transport or uptake system, the so-called mediated transport "curb" (1-3). Recently it became clear to us that the PGI mutant showed a highly specific pattern of its regulatory transport curb-i.e., only two D-aldohexoses were able to promote a curb, glucose and the all-cis D-aldohexose, allose. The latter sugar actually provoked an intense curb at concentrations as low as 1 mM (4). The curbing effect could be arrested by cycloheximide as well as by a respiratory inhibitor such as malonate (4).The transport curb in the parental cell line 023 (which is PGI+) was not confined to allose and glucose; D-glucosamine as well as mannose were also able to promote the development of this curb (1, 2, 4). This is presumably due to the fact that the 6-phosphoric esters of the two latter sugars can be freely converted to glucose 6-phosphate (by way of fructose 6-phosphate) in the parental line. The effects of glucosamine and mannose on the curb ofhexose transport into the parental line seem therefore merely to mimic the glucose effect.All of these features became evident in the parental and in the PGI mutant by using either the usual transport test (after preloading) or by using a simple uptake test (see below). Tunicamycin (TN), a specific inhibitor of glycosylation of asparaginyl glycoproteins (5, 6), has also been found to inhibit glucose transport in chicken embryo fibroblasts in terms of a decrease of Vma, (7). As will appear from the present work, in the PGI mutant, the hexose transport or uptake system does not seem to undergo any discernable inhibition by exposure to TN unless one of the two specific aldohexoses, D-allose or glucose, is also present. If fructose replaces the aldohexoses, TN does not show any inhibition of the uptake system whatsoever.
MATERIALS AND METHODSCells and Culture Conditions. The two cell lines used were hamster fibroblast lines 023 and DS7, the latter being a PGI mutant ...