Structural requirements for active intestinal transport. The nature of the carrier-sugar bonding at C-2 and the ring oxygen of the sugar.

Several weakly transported sugars were tested for transport by the Na(+)-dependent sugar carrier with slices of everted hamster intestinal tissue. Sugars were assumed to be transported by this carrier if the accumulation was diminished in the absence of Na(+) and in the presence of the competitive inhibitor 1,5-anhydro-d-glucitol. The extent of accumulation was correlated with the number of hydroxyl groups in the d-gluco configuration if the ring oxygen was placed in the normal d-glucose position.

Structural requirements for active intestinal transport. Spatial and bonding requirements at C-3 of the sugar.

Analogues of d-glucose modified at C-3, and in some cases at a second position, were prepared and tested for active accumulation by everted segments of hamster intestine. Their relative affinity for the sugar carrier was measured by tissue/medium ratio, Michaelis-Menten kinetics and competitive inhibition of d-galactose or methyl alpha-d-glucoside transport. d-Glucose and its 3-deoxy-3-fluoro, 3-chloro-3-deoxy and to a smaller extent its 3-bromo-3-deoxy derivatives, bound and were transported more strongly than 3-deoxy-d-glucose and other sugars not containing an electronegative atom in the gluco configuration at C-3.