D-Glucose anomeric preference of hexokinases in higher animals

The D-glucose anomeric preference of hexokinases isolated from rat liver, brain, and skeletal muscle, and bovine retina was studied using the glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase-NADP system. The ratios of maximum phosphorylation rates of beta-D-glucose to those of alpha-D-glucose were 1.33, 1.46, and 1.54 for hexokinase types I, II, and III from rat liver, 1.45 and 1.63 for type I from rat brain and bovine retina, 1.53 for type II from rat skeletal muscle, and 0.55 (when determined at 5 mM) for type IV (glucokinase) from rat liver, respectively.