AS-30D hepatoma as a model to study on insulin resistance in vitro

Studies on insulin resistance of liver cells are often performed with the use of various hepatoma cell lines. Such an approach allows investigating selected biochemical pathways at the cellular level. However, possible modifications of metabolic processes due to the neoplastic nature of such cells must be considered. Expanding the diversity of hepatoma cell lines used in metabolic studies could deliver new data for comparison with those obtained for other cell lines and should reduce the risk of misleading conclusions. In this study rat hepatoma AS-30D cells were tested as a potential model for studies on palmitate-induced insulin resistance. It was found that insulin-induced Akt kinase phosphorylation was substantially reduced in cells incubated with palmitate at a concentration as low as 75 µM. This effect was not accompanied by excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation or increased Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) phosphorylation. Moreover, preincubation of AS-30D cells with rosiglitazone, an antidiabetic agonist of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ), efficiently prevented the palmitate-induced insulin resistance. We conclude that AS-30D hepatoma cells may be used as a model sensitive to insulin and vulnerable to palmitate-induced insulin resistance.