D-mannoheptulose, which inhibits hexokinase isoenzymes in a predominantly competitive manner, has been found to decrease much more modestly D-glucose metabolism in pancreatic islets exposed to a low, as distinct from high, concentration of the hexose. In the present study, which aimed at investigating the factor(s) possibly responsible for such a phenomenon, a comparable situation was found to prevail in rat hepatocytes. However, when the hexaacetate ester of D-mannoheptulose was used instead of the unesterified heptose, the relative extent of inhibition of D-[5-3H]glucose utilization and D-[U-14C]glucose conversion to 14C-labelled acidic metabolites was comparable in hepatocytes exposed to either 1.7 or 8.3 mM D-glucose. Moreover, at the low D-glucose level, the incorporation of 3-O-methyl-D-glucose (6.6 mM) into the incubation medium increased the inhibitory action of unesterified D-mannoheptulose upon D-glucose metabolism. These findings suggest that an insufficient uptake of the heptose accounts, in part at least, for its poor efficiency as inhibitor of D-glucose catabolism in liver, and presumably islet cells exposed to low concentrations of the hexose.