Sensor Not Transporter

Apart from a few gustatory chemoreceptors, the only proteins that have so far been suggested as possible glucose sensors are two glucose transporter homologues found in yeast, both of which transduce the external glucose signal to control gene expression in the cell. However, little else was known about these sensor proteins until scientists from Los Angeles and Würzburg recently discovered a novel human glucose sensor hiding in a large family of Na+/glucose cotransporters called SLC5.