Beta-adrenergic receptors are not responsible for exercise stimulation of glucose transport

This study was designed to examine whether the increased glucose transport after acute exercise in rat skeletal muscle is mediated via beta-adrenergic receptor stimulation. Sarcolemmal (SL) membranes were isolated from three groups: control (C), acute exercise (E), and exercise + propranolol (E+P). The acute exercise bout was performed on a treadmill and consisted of a 45-min run until near exhaustion. E+P received an intravenous propranolol injection (0.8 mg/kg) 10 min before the exercise session. Michaelis-Menten kinetics at 1.5 s indicated that the Vmax for glucose transport was increased after each perturbation compared with C but were not different from each other (E, 4,334 +/- 377; E+P, 4,824 +/- 357; and C, 1,366 +/- 124 pmol.mg protein-1.s-1). The apparent Km's were similar in all groups. Scatchard plots for the D-glucose inhibitable class of cytochalasin B binding sites indicated no differences in either the total number of binding sites in the SL vesicles (C, 5.5 +/- 0.3; E, 5.1 +/- 0.2, and E+P, 5.1 +/- 0.3 pmol/mg protein) or in their dissociation constant (Kd) (C, 46 +/- 3; E, 48 +/- 3; and E+P, 49 +/- 2 nM). The increase in Vmax for transport was similar between E and E+P, indicating that exercise does not stimulate glucose transport via the beta-adrenergic receptor.