Question

What does the graph show? Compare and contrast glucose uptake in red blood cells from 15-day-old and 1-month-old guinea pigs.

Short answer

The graph shows glucose absorption by cells of guinea pigs of different ages, namely fifteen days old and one-month-old. The absorption is more in the case of fifteen days old guinea pig's cells than in the case of one-month-old guinea pig's cells.

Step-by-step solution

Red blood cells and GLUT transporters

Red blood cells are the type of cells created in the body's bone marrow and contain one of the essential pigments called hemoglobin, which carries the respiratory gases throughout the body.

Red blood cells are known to possess glucose transporters or GLUT. GLUT 1 is the most important type of transporter channel that can be controlled by the levels of ATP and AMP in the cells.

Glucose absorption and incubation time

It is observed that glucose absorption increases with an increase in the incubation period. The incubation period is when cells have been kept in contact with the radioactive glucose. There is a surge in the absorption in starting, and slowly there was a steady increase with the time.

Glucose absorption and representation in both the cases

Red blood cells of the guinea pig of different ages were taken in this experiment, one is fifteen days old, and the other is one month old.

It is observed that fifteen-day-old guinea pig cells absorb more radioactive glucose as it is always higher in the graph and represented by the red dots. It is almost double the glucose absorption in the case of one-month-old guinea pig's cells.