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Amino Acid Transporters and Glutamine

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Glutamine in Clinical Nutrition

Part of the book series: Nutrition and Health ((NH))

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Abstract

Glutamine transporters play important roles in metabolism and amino acid homeostasis of cells in most tissues [1]. While glutamine has been classified to be a nonessential amino acid, it has been shown that glutamine supply may become limiting for metabolism under conditions of stress and illness [2]. Furthermore, glutamine is a critical nutrient for rapidly proliferating cells, such as dividing cancer cells [3, 4]. On a cellular level, glutamine is imported into cells, or exported from cells, by plasma membrane glutamine transporters (see [1] for a review). Many glutamine transporters have been characterized traditionally by their specificity profile for substrates and inhibitors, their cation dependence, and mechanistic properties.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health Grant 2R01NS049335-06A1 awarded to C.G.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Binghamton University, 4400 Vestal Pkwy East, Binghamton, NY, 13902, USA

    Catherine Zander, Thomas Albers Ph.D. & Christof Grewer Ph.D.

  2. School of Life Science and Biopharmaceutics, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, 103-22#, Wenhua Rd, Shenhe District, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China

    Zhou Zhang Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Catherine Zander
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  2. Zhou Zhang Ph.D.
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  3. Thomas Albers Ph.D.
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  4. Christof Grewer Ph.D.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christof Grewer Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Intensive Care, Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals, London, United Kingdom

    Rajkumar Rajendram

  2. Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Diabetes and Nutritional Sciences, School of Medicine, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

    Victor R. Preedy

  3. Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom

    Vinood B. Patel

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Zander, C., Zhang, Z., Albers, T., Grewer, C. (2015). Amino Acid Transporters and Glutamine. In: Rajendram, R., Preedy, V., Patel, V. (eds) Glutamine in Clinical Nutrition. Nutrition and Health. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1932-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1932-1_2

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