Substrate-specific stimulation by glucagon of isolated murine brain mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation

Glucagon has been shown to increase further the enhanced tolerance for hypoxia of mice with elevated blood ketones and to stimulate ketone utilization by rat brain slices, suggesting that glucagon may affect brain metabolism. In addition to stimulating gluconeogenesis, glucagon alters the metabolism of mitochondria isolated from liver and heart. This study was designed to test whether glucagon can act directly and selectively on brain mitochondrial substrate oxidation. Mitochondria were isolated from normal murine brains using differential centrifugation through Ficoll gradients. Glucagon (3.6 microM) stimulated respiration in the presence of glutamate, and glutamate plus beta-hydroxybutyrate, but not in the presence of glutamate plus malate, succinate or beta-hydroxybutyrate alone. With glutamate as the substrate the hormone significantly increased State 3 oxygen consumption rates from control values of 91 mol O2/mol of cytochrome aa3/min to 117 mols O2/mol/aa2/min (p less than 0.0001), and also increased State 4 rates slightly but significantly. Glucagon did not change mitochondrial respiratory control ratios, but increased estimated rates of ATP synthesis from 434 (control) to 597 mols ADP consumed/mol aa3/min (p less than 0.0001). The data indicate that in vitro glucagon has a direct and substrate-specific stimulatory effect on isolated brain mitochondria. These substrate-specific effects were not altered when respiration was studied in the presence of postmitochondrial supernatant or exogenous 3',5'-cyclic AMP, indicating that glucagon, in addition to an in vivo action via activation of membrane-bound adenylate cyclase, can act, at least in vitro, directly and selectively on brain mitochondria.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)