Metabolism of pericytes during proliferation and quiescence. Top: Under growth factor stimulation, pericytes increase glucose metabolism (black arrows) to support proliferation. Pericytes increase glucose uptake via GLUT1 and GLUT4 transporters and glucose is metabolized to produce ATP predominantly through glycolysis. This metabolic pathway also provides precursors to protein glycosylation that are essential to the production of capillary basement membrane proteoglycans. Although nucleotide synthesis may be supported by glycolysis via the pentose phosphate pathway (dashed arrow), current data indicate that fatty acid-derived carbons are incorporated into dNTP synthesis in pericytes. Fatty acid oxidation (red arrows) also contributes to the bioenergetic demand during proliferation, generating up to 15% of the total ATP content. Bottom: Quiescence is associated with a low metabolic state and downregulation of all metabolic programs. However, the relative contributions of glycolysis, glucose oxidation and fatty acid oxidation (illustrated with dashed arrows) within quiescent pericytes have not been established. α-KG, alpha-Ketoglutarate; ATP, Adenosine triphosphate; FA, fatty acid; FAO, fatty acid oxidation; Glc, glucose; HBP, hexosamine biosynthesis pathway; PPP, pentose phosphate pathway; R5P, Ribose 5-phosphate; TCA, Tricarboxylic acid; UDP-GlcNac, Uridine 5′-diphospho-N-acetylglucosamine.