Kinetic Modeling of Sodium-glucose Co-transport

Abstract

A simulation of the kinetics of the sodium-glucose transporters has been reported using a model widely used in literature. However, the various kinetic constants of the transporter have been replaced by 1 (as they are not available in the literature). We have also studied the effect of the membrane potential on glucose transport. The used model is leaky, i.e., sodium transport can take place independently of glucose transport. Although the results can be considered only semi-quantitative, we find that glucose transport is rather energy-intensive, because around 15 sodium ions needed to be transported for each glucose molecule carried inside. However, the process is powerful, in the sense that the final glucose concentration outside can fall almost to zero.