Functional consequences of naturally occurring variants of human hexokinase II

Hexokinase II (HKII) catalyses a key step in glucose metabolism and can be regarded as a candidate gene for insulin resistance and type 2 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus. We observed previously four amino acid substitutions among Finnish type 2 diabetic patients: Gln142His, Ala314Val; 0.9%, Arg353Cys; 2.7% and Arg775Gln; 2.7%. The Arg775Gln mutation was also observed in normal control subjects (2.1%) and the Gln142His substitution was found in both Type II diabetic and normal subjects with similar frequencies (approximately 20%). Since Gln at position 142, Ala at 314 and Arg at 775 are present in human and rat hexokinases and could be important for structure and function of the enzyme, we generated all four substitutions by site-directed mutagenesis and expressed them in E.coli. None of these substitutions had any effect on HKII catalytic activity, K(m) or Vmax for glucose values in vitro. Thus unless these substitutions have an impact on enzyme activity or regulation in vivo, it is unlikely that these substitutions contribute to the aetiology of Type II diabetes.