The evil villain Dr Gruose has developed a toxin that target

The evil villain, Dr. Gruose, has developed a toxin that targets carbohydrate transporters. However, there are 5 carbohydrate transporters and his toxin only targets GLUT 4. Explain whether or not this toxin would be devastating to human targets? Would GLUT 5 been a better target? How about GLUT 1?

Solution

Glucose is very important source of energy in human body acquired from carbohydrates which is taken in from diet. These glucose molecules take part in the metabolic pathway{glycolysis} and yield pyruvate along with ATP molecules that are driving force for energy. GLUT stands for glucose transporter and help to transport glucose over plasma membrane. GLUT are intergral membrane proteins made up of 12 different proteins and have both amino and carboxy terminals which are exposed on cytoplasmic part of plasma membrane. These proteins are classified into 4 categories based on their location, where are they found and depending upon whether they are unidirectional or bidirectional. Now the toxin that Dr. Gruose has developed has affected GLUT4. This protein is mainly found in adipose tissues and cardiac tissues this simply means that GLUT4 protein is responsible for transport of glucose in those respective muscles, now that GLUT4 is affected by that toxin its functioning will be hamppered thus no energy generation will be possible in cardiac muscles and may give rise to problems of sore muscles, muscle cramps, cardiac arrest, paralysis etc.Incase if the toxin affected the protein GLUT5 it would cause functional error in organs like kidney, testis, skeletal muscles and also brain. If the toxin would have affected GLUT1 it would have been more devastating because GLUT1 protein are mostly found in fetal tissues, erythrocytes, blood-brain barrier, it is also responsible for respiration purpose of some tissues. Any disorder related to neural could eventually rise up and as per todays technology no perfect cure has been developed for neural disorders.