Decrease of bradykinin-induced glomerular contraction in diabetic rat: a new cellular interpretation

The contractile response to bradykinin (BK), measured by the reduction of the planar surface area, was studied in glomeruli and mesangial cells (MC) isolated from diabetic rats (D) one week after diabetes induction with injection of streptozotocin (STZ; 60 mg kg-1, i.p.). Results were compared with age and weight-matched untreated rats (N) and were expressed by two parameters of cell activity, the mean maximum contraction (MMC) and the proportion of contractile cells (PCC). Glomerular and mesangial contraction were found to be clearly reduced in diabetic rats in response to 100 nM BK. The lower contractile response was associated with a decrease of both glomerular calcium uptake and mesangial cell intracellular calcium mobilization. The fact that cell pretreatment with two protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitors, phorbol 12-13 myristate acetate and calphostin, lowered normal cell contraction at the level of that found in diabetic MC without any significant effect in the latter, suggests the involvement of a PKC pathway, perhaps by a decrease of activatable PKC in diabetes. In addition, our results led to the first description of a possible role of the kallikrein-kinin system in the early glomerular hemodynamic changes occurring in diabetes. Insulin (1-200 nM) increased the contractile response of cultured diabetic cells (MMC), and in this case, it also increased the PCC. It must be stressed that the effect of 1 nM insulin on the former (88% increase) was very much smaller than its effect on the latter (103% increase). The combination of the two parameters (contraction index, CI) provided a realistic evaluation of the contractile capacities of the cell population of the cultures as a whole. The differences in this index between normal and diabetic cell populations, in the absence or presence of insulin, were strictly parallel to those found in intact glomeruli. Finally, our results further confirm (Ouardani et al., Biol. Cell 86, 127, (1996)) the limit of the first five cell passages within which cultured MC can be reasonably used for the study of contractile abnormalities occurring in the early steps of diabetic state.