Understanding how carnitine transporters regulate sperm motility and hormone production could unlock new fertility treatments, offering hope for millions affected by infertility globally. Schematic Representation of Carnitine Transport and Distribution in Various Tissues. Carnitine transport mediated by multiple SLCs is depicted with different colors.
The transport of carnitine across epithelial cells of the intestine, kidney, and placenta, as well as into the liver, brain, heart, muscle, epididymis, and airway tissues, is shown. OCTN2 (Green): mediates carnitine transport by a sodium-dependent mechanism, which is not reported for the sake of clarity. CT2 (Purple): involved in carnitine transport, specifically in the epididymis, contributing to sperm maturation.
OCTN1 (Yellow): Low-affinity carnitine transporter participates in carnitine transport in various tissues. ATB 0,+ (Blue): mediates sodium and chloride-dependent transport of carnitine, not reported for the sake of clarity, in the intestine and other tissues. MCT9 (Pink): transporter associated with carnitine efflux through the basolateral membrane of absorption epithelia like intestine and kidney.
Arrows indicate the direction of carnitine transport across cellular membranes. Image created using Adobe Illustrator. Human transporters are represented as space-fill models from AlphaFold A recent study published in the journal Biochemical Pharmacology reviewed the role of membrane transporters in carnitine homeostasis, f.