Differences between human and rodent pancreatic islets: low pyruvate carboxylase, atp citrate lyase, and pyruvate carboxylation and high glucose-stimulated acetoacetate in human pancreatic islets

Anaplerosis, the net synthesis in mitochondria of citric acid cycle intermediates, and cataplerosis, their export to the cytosol, have been shown to be important for insulin secretion in rodent beta cells. However, human islets may be different. We observed that the enzyme activity, protein level, and relative mRNA level of the key anaplerotic enzyme pyruvate carboxylase (PC) were 80-90% lower in human pancreatic islets compared with islets of rats and mice and the rat insulinoma cell line INS-1 832/13. Activity and protein of ATP citrate lyase, which uses anaplerotic products in the cytosol, were 60-75% lower in human islets than in rodent islets or the cell line. In line with the lower PC, the percentage of glucose-derived pyruvate that entered mitochondrial metabolism via carboxylation in human islets was only 20-30% that in rat islets. This suggests human islets depend less on pyruvate carboxylation than rodent models that were used to establish the role of PC in insulin secretion. Human islets possessed high levels of succinyl-CoA:3-ketoacid-CoA transferase, an enzyme that forms acetoacetate in the mitochondria, and acetoacetyl-CoA synthetase, which uses acetoacetate to form acyl-CoAs in the cytosol. Glucose-stimulated human islets released insulin similarly to rat islets but formed much more acetoacetate. β-Hydroxybutyrate augmented insulin secretion in human islets. This information supports previous data that indicate beta cells can use a pathway involving succinyl-CoA:3-ketoacid-CoA transferase and acetoacetyl-CoA synthetase to synthesize and use acetoacetate and suggests human islets may use this pathway more than PC and citrate to form cytosolic acyl-CoAs.

Identification of the cyclic AMP responsive element (CRE) that mediates transcriptional regulation of the pyruvate carboxylase gene in HepG2 cells

Pyruvate carboxylase (PC) catalyzes the first committed step in gluconeogenesis. Here we investigated the effect of various hormones including cAMP, dexamethasone and insulin on the abundance of PC mRNA in the human hepatocyte cell line, HepG2. Treatment of HepG2 cells with 1 microM of glucagon increased the expression of PC mRNA threefold within 72 h. Treatment with 1mM 8-Br-cAMP caused the abundance of PC mRNA to increase by 2-3-fold by 48 h, peak at fourfold at 72 h, and remain unchanged to 96 h. This is in contrast to phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) for which expression was decreased after 72 h, suggesting a distinct difference in the control of these two enzymes in the long term. Dexamethasone or insulin alone did not affect the abundance of PC mRNA whereas treatment of HepG2 cells with the combination of 1mM 8-Br-cAMP and 0.5 microM dexamethasone further increased the abundance of PC mRNA, suggesting the predominant role of 8-Br-cAMP over dexamethasone. Transient transfection of the luciferase reporter construct driven by a 1.95 kbp 5'-flanking sequence of the mouse PC gene and a plasmid encoding the human cAMP-responsive element binding protein increased luciferase reporter activity to 7-fold similar to that observed with a PEPCK promoter-luciferase reporter construct. Deletion of the 5'-flanking region of the PC gene to 781 bp resulted in the complete loss of CREB-mediated induction of reporter gene, suggesting the presence of the cAMP-responsive unit is located between 1.95 kbp and 781 bp upstream of the mouse PC gene. Electrophoretic mobility shifted and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays demonstrated that CREB bind to -1639/-1631 CRE of mouse PC gene in vitro and in vivo, respectively.

Characterization of the distal promoter of the human pyruvate carboxylase gene in pancreatic beta cells

Pyruvate carboxylase (PC) is an enzyme that plays a crucial role in many biosynthetic pathways in various tissues including glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. In the present study, we identify promoter usage of the human PC gene in pancreatic beta cells. The data show that in the human, two alternative promoters, proximal and distal, are responsible for the production of multiple mRNA isoforms as in the rat and mouse. RT-PCR analysis performed with cDNA prepared from human liver and islets showed that the distal promoter, but not the proximal promoter, of the human PC gene is active in pancreatic beta cells. A 1108 bp fragment of the human PC distal promoter was cloned and analyzed. It contains no TATA box but possesses two CCAAT boxes, and other putative transcription factor binding sites, similar to those of the distal promoter of rat PC gene. To localize the positive regulatory region in the human PC distal promoter, 5'-truncated and the 25-bp and 15-bp internal deletion mutants of the human PC distal promoter were generated and used in transient transfections in INS-1 832/13 insulinoma and HEK293T (kidney) cell lines. The results indicated that positions -340 to -315 of the human PC distal promoter serve as (an) activator element(s) for cell-specific transcription factor, while the CCAAT box at -71/-67, a binding site for nuclear factor Y (NF-Y), as well as a GC box at -54/-39 of the human PC distal promoter act as activator sequences for basal transcription.

Functional characterization of the proximal promoter of the murine pyruvate carboxylase gene in hepatocytes: role of multiple gc boxes

Pyruvate carboxylase (PC) catalyzes the first committed step in gluconeogenesis in the liver. The murine PC gene possesses two promoters, the proximal (P1) and the distal (P2) which mediate production of distinct tissue-specific mRNA isoforms. By comparing the luciferase activities of 5'-nested deletions of the P1-promoter in the AML12 mouse hepatocyte cell line, the critical cis-acting elements required for maintaining basal transcription were located within the 166 nucleotides proximal to the transcription start site. Three GC boxes were identified within this region and shown by gel shift and ChIP assays to bind Sp1/Sp3. Over-expression of Sp1/Sp3 in AML12 and NIH3T3 cells increased P1-promoter activity, with Sp1 being a stronger activator than Sp3. Mutation of any one of the three GC boxes dramatically reduced basal promoter activity by 60-80% suggesting that all three boxes are equally strong regulatory elements. In AML12 cells, over-expression of Sp1/Sp3 restored the transcriptional activity of GC1 and GC2 but not GC3 mutants to levels similar to that of the WT construct, suggesting that GC3 is particularly critical for Sp1/Sp3-mediated induction. In NIH3T3 cells, however, the three boxes were equally important, indicating that the GC boxes differentially contribute to transcriptional regulation of the P1-promoter in the two cell lines. Mutants harboring two disrupted GC boxes showed a further decrease in promoter activity similar to the triple GC box mutant. Neither Sp1 nor Sp3 was able to fully restore the promoter activities of these mutants to that the WT level.

High level of ATP citrate lyase expression in human and rat pancreatic islets

A comparison of an enzyme's level in pancreatic islets with its level in other body tissues can give clues about the importance of a metabolic pathway in the islets. ATP citrate lyase plays a key role in the pyruvate citrate shuttle, as well as for the synthesis of short chain acyl-CoAs and lipid, and its level in human and rat pancreatic islets relative to other tissues has not been previously reported. We compared the level of ATP citrate lyase mRNA and enzyme activity in pancreatic islets of humans and rats and the INS-1 832/13 cell line to levels in liver, a lipid synthesizing organ, and also kidney. The mRNA level was much higher in human islets and rat islets than in liver and kidney of the same genus and the enzyme activity was 8-fold and 12-fold higher in islets of humans and rats, respectively, compared to liver of the same genus. These data support other evidence that indicates ATP citrate lyase is important for the pyruvate citrate shuttle and lipid synthesis in insulin secretion.

Effects of Guar Gum and Sodium Benzoate on the Properties and Hydrophilicity of Silk Fibroin Hydrogels

Silk fibroin (SF)-based hydrogels were prepared by the simple evaporation method. The outcomes of SF-based hydrogels were assessed for consideration in terms of practical and convenient use. Guar gum (GG) and sodium benzoate (SB) are blending reagents to the SF solution and are poured into the petri dish to make the hydrogels. After leaving the mixture solution for three days to solidify, all SF-based hydrogels were peeled off and characterized. The SF-blend guar gum (SF-GG) and SF-GG-blend sodium benzoate (SF-GG-SB) could be constructed, but in different textures and levels of transparency. The SB affected the solid texture and resulted in a higher water contact angle (WCA) value of the prepared SF hydrogel than of the SF-GG. The results from Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) indicated all the main functional groups of substances that were contained in the blending hydrogels. Moreover, some interactions between the functional groups were also detected. A thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) was used to determine the hydrogel decomposition as a function of temperature. The DTG thermograms, which exhibit the maximum decomposition temperature, revealed that the interaction forces between blending substances and SF, as well as their structure, are the reason for the thermal stability of the SF-based hydrogels. SF-GG-SB hydrogels have higher tensile strength than the SF-GG hydrogels. In conclusion, the appearance, texture, hydrophilicity, thermal stability, and tensile strength of the SF-based hydrogels were affected by the types and concentrations of the blending substances. This suggests that the SF-based hydrogel properties could be designed and adjusted to attain desirable textures for fitting target applications.