Glucose transport in erythrocytes of diabetic and healthy children as related to hemoglobin A1c.

We studied glucose transport under physiological conditions (38 degrees C, pH 7.2, 5 mmol of glucose per liter) in erythrocytes of nine diabetic children with hemoglobin A1c values ranging from 6.6 to 13.8%, and in erythrocytes from six healthy children. Glucose transport was determined to be 2.38 (SD 0.16) X 10(-10) mol/cm2 X s (n = 18), and 2.47 (SD 0.18) X 10(-10) mol/cm2 X s (n = 12) in erythrocytes from diabetics and controls, respectively. The corresponding values for hemoglobin A1c were 11.0% (SD 2.3%) for the diabetics and 5.6% (SD 0.3%) for the controls. Thus the concentration of hemoglobin A1c, which reflects the degree of glycation of membrane proteins, differs significantly (p less than 0.001) between the two groups, whereas there was no significant variation (p greater than 0.1) in D-glucose transport. We conclude that glycation of the integral membrane protein that mediates glucose transport has no effect on transport function under physiological conditions.