Glucose transport and apoptosis

The transport and metabolism of glucose modify programmed cell death in a n umber of different cell types. This review presents three cell death paradi gms that link a decrease in glucose transport to apoptosis. Although these pathways overlap, the glucose-dependent stimuli that trigger cell death dif fer. These paradigms include glucose deprivation-induced ATP depletion and stimulation of the mitochondrial death pathway cascade; glucose deprivation -induced oxidative stress and triggering of Bax-associated events including the JNK/MAPK signalling pathways; and finally hypoglycemia-regulated expre ssion of HIF-1 alpha, stabilization of p53 leading to an increase in p53-as sociated apoptosis. Several examples of each paradigm are presented. Future studies of glucose transport-associated apoptotic events will allow better understanding of the role of cellular metabolism in programmed cell death.