Glucose utilization in relation to insulin secretion in NZO and C57Bl mouse islets

Further studies of insulin secretion from isolated pancreatic islets of the NZO strain of obese hyperglycemic mouse have shown markedly impaired insulin secretory responses to D-glucose in islets from fasted or fed mice. NZO islets at a low glucose concentration (3.3 mM) showed a significant insulin secretory response to 0.5 mM 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine (IBMX), a phosphodiesterase inhibitor, but in the presence of this agent showed no significant additional response to increased glucose concentration. This contrasted with the situation in islets from an arbitrarily chosen control strain of mouse (C57Bl) which showed a small or insignificant response to 0.5 mM IBMX at a low glucose concentration, but a greatly enhanced response to glucose in the presence of IBMX. In contrast to the relative refractoriness of the NZO islets to glucose, they showed a large response to D,L-glyceraldehyde, at least equal to that found in the control islets. Glucose utilization was studied by measuring the conversion of D-[5-3H]glucose to [3H]H2O. In islets from both fasted and fed NZO mice, glucose utilization, when calculated on the basis of islet DNA content, was markedly reduced at high glucose concentrations compared to that in islets from the control strain. It is concluded that the relative unresponsiveness of NZO islets to glucose is associated with, and perhaps due to, a decreased rate of glucose utilization. The preserved responsiveness to glyceraldehyde suggests that the reduced glucose utilization may be due to a partial metabolic block before the triose phosphate step in the islet glycolytic pathway.