Glucose and O2 are the most important substrates for brain energy metabolism. Glucose enters ISF across the blood–brain barrier via the more glycosylated form of a passive, selective carrier, GLUT1 (SLC2A1), that is present in membranes located on both surfaces of the endothelial cells. From ISF it rapidly enters both astrocytes by the less glycosylated form of GLUT1 and neurons via GLUT3 (see Fig. 11). The rate-limiting step in glucose metabolism is the effectively irreversible phosphorylation by hexokinase. Normally glucose influx into the parenchyma is higher than the rate of phosphorylation, and thus there must be some efflux corresponding to the difference. This efflux is also primarily across the blood–brain barrier via GLUT1. Because both influx and efflux of glucose take place by passive transport there is no additional metabolic cost caused by having influx greater than the metabolic rate.
Fig. 11 GLUT and MCT transporters at or near the blood–brain barrier. GLUT1 and MCT1 are present on endothelial cells; GLUT1 and MCT4 on astrocytes
(Figure simplified and redrawn from Simpson et al. [315])