Fasting and diabetes alter adipose tissue glycogen synthase

In a previous report (J. Biol. Chem. 254: 4678-4683, 1979), we showed that fasting blunted the ability of insulin to promote glucose incorporation into glycogen in vitro. In addition, we showed that glycogen synthase activity was altered in two ways: the concentration of glucose 6-P causing half-maximal activation increased, and positive cooperativity appeared in the glucose 6-P activation of the enzyme. We now show that streptozotocin-diabetes causes the same changes in glucose incorporation and glycogen synthase activity. We show that these changes in glycogen synthase activity persist during enzyme purification; thus it is likely the changes are a result of a structural alteration of the enzyme. Because glycogenolysis of a glycogen particle from rabbit skeletal muscle also caused the appearance of positive cooperativity, we propose that both phosphorylation and glycogenolysis are involved in the appearance of positive cooperativity.