Platelets, the cells in blood that enable clotting, are highly reliant on their ability to metabolize glucose, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Iowa.
The findings, published in Cell Reports and in a related paper published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology (ATVB), may have implications for understanding the increased risk of thrombosis—blood clots inside blood vessels—in people with diabetes.
Platelets are disc-shaped cellular fragments in the blood that, when activated, aggregate to form clots. Increased platelet activation may also contribute to inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and the increased mortality from sepsis. The research team found that mice lacking the proteins that platelets use to import glucose from the circulation have lower platelet counts, and their platelets live shorter lives.
“We found that glucose metabolism is very critical across the entire life cycle of platelets—from production, to what they do in the body, to how they get cleared from the body,” says E. Dale Abel, MD, PhD, professor and DEO of internal medicine at the UI Carver College of Medicine and director of the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center at the UI.