Hexokinase 3, White Cell (HK3)

Hexokinases phosphorylate glucose to produce glucose 6-phosphate, thus committing glucose to the glycolytic pathway.  hexokinase 3. Similar to hexokinases 1 and 2, this allosteric enzyme is inhibited by its product glucose 6-phosphate.Furuta et al. (1996) isolated cDNA clones encoding the HK3 gene from a liver cDNA library. The sequence encodes a predicted 923-amino acid polypeptide with over 50% identity to human hexokinases I  and II . There was 84.7% identity between the amino acid sequences of human and rat hexokinase III. Northern blotting showed the presence of hexokinase III mRNA in liver and lung. By fluorescence in situ hybridization, Furuta et al. (1996) localized the HK3 gene to 5q35.2. Colosimo et al. (1996) used both somatic cell hybrid analysis and fluorescence in situ hybridization to map HK3 to 5q35.3.