Diabetes, Vol 44, Issue 11 1280-1284, Copyright © 1995 by American Diabetes Association
A defective stimulus-secretion coupling rather than glucotoxicity mediates the impaired insulin secretion in the mildly diabetic F1 hybrids of GK-Wistar rats
SM Abdel-Halim, CG Ostenson, A Andersson, L Jansson and S Efendic
Department of Molecular Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
Adult F1 hybrids of male GK and female Wistar control rats exhibit mild,
spontaneous non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus characterized by
impaired glucose-induced insulin secretion. Using isolated pancreatic
islets of hybrid rats, we first studied whether impaired glucose-induced
insulin response is present not only in adult but also in neonatal rats.
Furthermore, we investigated whether the impaired glucose-induced insulin
response can be restored by long-term normalization of glycemia. Both
1-week- and 2- to 3-month-old hybrid rats had similar body weights but
increased fed blood glucose levels (P < 0.05) compared with age-matched
control rats. At 5.5 mmol/l glucose, insulin release was two- to threefold
lower in isolated islets of hybrid than in control rats of both age groups
(P < 0.05). At 16.7 mmol/l glucose, insulin secretion from hybrid islets
was approximately 25% of that from control islets of both 1-week- and 2- to
3-month-old rats. For the second objective, batches of 250 islets from
hybrid or control rats were transplanted under the kidney capsule of
athymic, normoglycemic nude mice and maintained there for 4 weeks.
Perfusion of kidneys demonstrated that glucose-induced (16.7 mmol/l)
insulin secretion was impaired markedly in hybrid grafts compared with that
in control grafts (0.66 +/- 0.23 vs. 1.8 +/- 0.38 pmol/20 min; P <
0.01), whereas stimulation by 20 mmol/l arginine resulted in similar
insulin responses in both groups. The volumes of the grafted islets were
similar in kidneys bearing either control or hybrid islets.(ABSTRACT
TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)