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* Department of Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) Prevention and Health, Gaubius Laboratory, Leiden, The Netherlands
Department of Cardiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands
Published, JLR Papers in Press, December 1, 2004. DOI 10.1194/jlr.M400440-JLR200
1 To whom correspondence should be addressed. e-mail: a.c.heijboer{at}lumc.nl
| ABSTRACT |
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In conclusion, 16 h of fasting does not induce hepatic insulin resistance, although it causes liver steatosis, whereas muscle insulin sensitivity increases without changes in muscle TG content. Therefore, fasting induces differential changes in tissue-specific insulin sensitivity, and liver and muscle TG contents are unlikely to be involved in these changes.
Abbreviations: ACC, acetyl-C7oA carboxylase; BGU, body glucose uptake; BHQ1, BlackHoleQuencher-1; Ct, critical threshold; 2-DG, 2-deoxyglucose; DGAT, diacylglycerol acyltransferase; GAPDH, glyceraldehyde phosphate dehydrogenase; GLUT4, glucose transporter 4; GP, glycogen phosphorylase; G6P, glucose-6-phosphatase; HGP, hepatic glucose production; PEPCK, phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase; PPAR, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor; RT-PCR, real-time polymerase chain reaction; SREBP, sterol-regulatory element binding protein; TG, triglyceride
Supplementary key words glucose metabolism steatosis insulin action transcription factors isotopes
| INTRODUCTION |
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Evidence is accumulating indicating that accumulation of TG is involved in tissue-specific insulin resistance. For instance, studies in transgenic mice with targeted disturbances in peripheral fatty acid/TG partitioning showed that there is an inverse relationship between hepatic TG stores and hepatic insulin sensitivity (4, 5). In muscle, TG accumulation is also associated with insulin resistance, characterized by a decrease in insulin-stimulated glucose uptake (6). There is a lot of evidence on the action of fatty acid derivatives as agonists and antagonists for nuclear transcription factors, such as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) and sterol-regulatory element binding proteins (SREBPs) (7, 8). These transcription factors profoundly alter the expression of enzymes/proteins involved in glucose and lipid metabolism (813) and have interactions with hormones such as insulin (14, 15). Therefore, these transcription factors could be molecular links between intracellular fatty acid/TG accumulation and insulin resistance. Because hepatic steatosis is associated with hepatic insulin resistance, we postulated that fasting also induces hepatic insulin resistance. The effects of fasting on muscle TG accumulation and insulin sensitivity have not been studied. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of 16 h of fasting on hepatic and muscle insulin sensitivity in wild-type mice in vivo in relation to 1) tissue TG accumulation and 2) changes in mRNA expression of transcription factors and related proteins involved in glucose and lipid metabolism.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp
Hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamps of the two experimental groups were performed side by side on the same day. The hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp procedure was performed as described previously (4, 16). In short, a continuous infusion of D-[14C]glucose (0.3 µCi/kg/min; Amersham, Little Chalfont, UK) was started and blood samples were taken (after 60 and 80 min of tracer infusion) to determine basal glucose kinetics. Subsequently, a hyperinsulinemic study started with a bolus of insulin (100 mU/kg Actrapid; Novo Nordisk, Chartres, France) followed by continuous infusion of insulin (6.8 mU/h) and of D-[14C]glucose. A variable infusion of 12.5% D-glucose (in PBS) solution was also started and adjusted to maintain blood glucose levels constant at
8 mmol/l, measured via tail bleeding (Freestyle, TheraSense; Disetronic Medical Systems BV, Vianen, The Netherlands). During the last hour of the experiment, blood samples (75 µl) were taken every 20 min to determine plasma [14C]glucose and insulin concentrations.
To estimate insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in individual tissues, 2-deoxy-D-[3H]glucose (2-[3H]DG; Amersham) was administered as a bolus (1 µCi) 40 min before the end of the clamp procedure.
After the last blood sample was taken, mice were killed and liver and muscle were taken out, immediately frozen using liquid N2, and stored at 20°C until further analysis.
Analytical procedures
Plasma levels of ketone bodies, glucose, and free fatty acids were determined using commercially available kits (#310-A Sigma GPO-Trinder kit and #315-500; Sigma, St. Louis, MO; FFA; Wako Pure Chemical Industries, Osaka, Japan). Plasma insulin concentrations were measured by radio immunoassay using rat insulin standards (Sensitive Rat Insulin Assay; Linco Research, St. Charles, MO). For determination of plasma D-[14C]glucose, plasma was deproteinized with 20% trichloroacetic acid, dried to remove water, resuspended in demiwater, and counted with scintillation fluid (Ultima Gold; Packard, Meridien, CT) on dual channels for separation of 14C and 3H, as described earlier (17).
Tissue analysis
Liver and muscle samples were homogenized (
10%, w/v) in water. Lipids were extracted according to Bligh and Dyer's method (18). In short, a solution was made of each 200 µg sample of protein in 800 µl of water, then 3 ml of methanol-chloroform (2:1) was added and mixed thoroughly, after which 500 µl of chloroform, 100 µl of internal standard, and 1 ml of demiwater were added. After centrifugation, the chloroform layer was collected and dried. The remaining pellet was dissolved in 50 µl of chloroform and put on a high-performance TLC plate. With high-performance TLC analysis, TGs, cholesterol, and cholesteryl esters were separated. The amount of TG in the tissues was quantified by scanning the plates with a Hewlett-Packard Scanjet 4c and by integration of the density using Tina® version 2.09 software (Raytest, Staubenhardt, Germany).
For determination of tissue 2-DG uptake, the homogenate of muscle was boiled and the supernatant was subjected to an ion-exchange column to separate 2-DG-6-phosphatase from 2-DG, as described previously (16, 17, 19).
Calculations
Under steady-state conditions for plasma glucose concentrations, the rate of glucose disappearance equals the rate of glucose appearance [body glucose uptake (BGU)]. The latter was calculated as the ratio of the rate of infusion of D-[14C]glucose (dpm/min) and the steady-state plasma [14C]glucose specific activity (dpm/µmol glucose). Hepatic glucose production (HGP) was calculated as the difference between the rate of glucose disappearance and the infusion rate of exogenous D-glucose.
The hepatic insulin sensitivity index was calculated as the ratio of the relative suppression of HGP during the hyperinsulinemic condition to the change in plasma insulin levels from basal to hyperinsulinemic conditions. The whole body insulin sensitivity index was calculated as the ratio of BGU to plasma insulin levels during hyperinsulinemic conditions.
Muscle-specific glucose uptake was calculated from tissue 2-DG content, which was expressed as percentage of 2-DG of the dosage per gram of tissue, as previously described (19).
Real-time polymerase chain reaction
Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to measure mRNA expression levels in skeletal muscle [glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4), PPAR
coactivator-1 (PGC1), PPAR
, diacylglycerol acyltransferase 1 (DGAT1), DGAT2, SREBP1c, FAS, acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC)1, and PPAR
] and in liver [phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK), glucose-6-phosphatase (G6P), glycogen phosphorylase (GP), PGC1, PPAR
, SREBP1c, FAS, ACC1, PPAR
, DGAT1, and DGAT2] of mice after 4 and 16 h of starvation. Two other groups of mice, which were not subjected to a hyperinsulinemic clamp, were killed after 4 or 16 h of fasting, and liver and skeletal muscle were taken out for further analysis.
Muscle and liver were homogenized in 1.2 ml of RNA-Bee (Tel-Test, Inc.), and total RNA was extracted according to Chomczynski and Sacchi (20). The amount of RNA was determined by spectrophotometry at a wavelength of 260 nm. The quality was checked by the ratio of absorption at 260 nm and absorption at 280 nm. cDNA was obtained from total RNA.
For RT-PCR, forward and reverse primers and TaqMan probe (Table 1) were designed from mouse-specific sequence data (Entrez, National Institutes of Health; and Ensembl, Sanger Institute) using computer software (Primer Express; Applied Biosystems). For each of the genes, a Basic Local Alignment Search Tool search was done to reveal that sequence homology was obtained only for the target gene.
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Each oligonucleotide set was optimized to determine the optimal primer concentrations and probe concentration and verify the efficiency of the amplification.
PCR amplification was performed in a total reaction volume of 12.5 µl. The reaction mixture consisted of qPCRTM MasterMix (Eurogentec), the optimal primer and probe concentrations of the target gene and the endogenous control, nuclease-free water, and cDNA. An identical cycle profile was used for all genes: 50°C for 2 min, 95°C for 10 min, followed by 95°C for 15 s and 60°C for 1 min for 40 cycles.
Data were analyzed using a comparative critical threshold (Ct) method in which the amount of target normalized to the amount of endogenous control (GAPDH/cyclophiline) and relative to the control sample is given by 2
Ct (Applied Biosystems). For each gene, all samples were run together, allowing relative comparisons of the samples of a given gene.
Statistics
The data are presented as means ± SD. The data were analyzed using a nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test for independent samples. Differences were considered statistically significant at P
0.05.
| RESULTS |
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mRNA were not significantly different (Table 3).
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| DISCUSSION |
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The increase in muscle insulin sensitivity during fasting is a new and interesting finding. Previous studies showed an inverse relationship between intramuscular TG content and insulin action (21, 22). However, because we observed an increase in muscle insulin sensitivity without changes in muscle TG content, it is unlikely that changes in muscle TG play a role in the increased muscle-specific insulin sensitivity during fasting.
During the hyperinsulinemic period of the clamp procedure, we observed significantly lower insulin concentrations in 16 h fasted mice compared with control mice. As both groups received the same amount of insulin during hyperinsulinemic conditions by infusion, this difference suggests an increased insulin clearance during fasting. Because of this difference, we corrected the data on insulin sensitivity for the insulin concentrations.
Another purpose of the present study was to relate the observed in vivo metabolic changes to changes in the transcriptional regulation of genes involved in glucose metabolism, lipogenesis, and ß-oxidation in liver and muscle. In the liver, there were changes in the expression of regulatory transcription factors favoring gluconeogenesis, ß-oxidation, and TG synthesis, with negative effects on glycogenolysis and fatty acid synthesis. Total HGP is the sum of glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis. Liver glycogen stores are limited; consequently, during starvation, the relative contribution of gluconeogenesis to total glucose production increases, whereas that of glycogenolysis decreases (23). PGC1 promotes gluconeogenesis by stimulation of PEPCK (24, 25). Our results document a significant increase in the expression of PGC1 and PEPCK. GP is an enzyme involved in glycogenolysis, and its expression is decreased. G6P is involved in glucose production, with sources from both gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis. The expression of G6P is not significantly altered by fasting, which seems to reflect the absence of changes in HGP in 16 h fasted compared with control mice.
Our study showed a reduced expression level of SREBP1c. This decrease in SREBP1c mRNA during fasting is in accordance with findings of others in mouse liver (26). Hepatic expression levels of enzymes involved in fatty acid synthesis (FAS and ACC1) decreased during fasting. The expression of these enzymes is stimulated by SREBP1c (27). Although this was not reported in mice before, these findings are in accordance with those of Hillgartner, Charron, and Chesnut (28) in fasted chickens. Because a decrease in the expression of SREBP1c, FAS, and ACC1 during 16 h of fasting results in decreased suppression of gluconeogenesis and reduced fatty acid synthesis, leaving pyruvate as a substrate for gluconeogenesis, these changes seem to be of physiological importance in the adaptive response of glucose and lipid metabolism to fasting.
The observed increase in liver TG accumulation in our study is in agreement with the observed increase of hepatic mRNA expression levels of PPAR
and of DGAT1 and DGAT2, all three favoring hepatic TG synthesis (29). The increase in hepatic PPAR
is in agreement with the findings of others (26, 29, 30).
PPAR
, which is known as the "fasting gene," controls the expression of numerous genes related to lipid metabolism in the liver, including genes involved in ß-oxidation, fatty acid uptake, and transport. Therefore, it is surprising that PPAR
mRNA was not increased after 16 h of fasting, whereas this was found by others in wild-type mice (9). Because these mice had another background (SV129), and others found a decrease in PPAR
mRNA after 48 and 72 h of fasting in wild-type mice (1) with the same background as our mice (C57Bl6), it seems likely that these differences in background explain this discrepancy.
In muscle, RT-PCR results demonstrate the fasting-induced expression of genes and enzymes favoring glucose uptake. mRNA expression levels of PGC1 and GLUT4 were increased after 16 h of fasting. PGC1 can control the level of endogenous GLUT4 gene expression in multinucleate myotubes via coactivating MEF2C (31). Moreover, Hammarstedt et al. (32) showed a high correlation (r = 0.91) between GLUT4 mRNA and PGC1 mRNA in human skeletal muscle. Therefore, our findings support their hypothesis that PGC1 is associated with increased GLUT4 expression and insulin sensitivity.
The observed decrease in muscle SREBP1c mRNA in our study is in agreement with recently published results (33). These studies found a decrease in SREBP1c mRNA in different rat muscle types that was related to the duration of fasting and consistent with a role for SREBP1c as a sensor of nutritional status in skeletal muscle. Although SREBP1c stimulates the expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism (such as FAS and ACC1) in tissues like the liver, not much is known about the regulatory role of SREBP1c in skeletal muscle. Because our study shows an increase in FAS and ACC1 mRNA during 16 h of fasting but decreased expression of SREBP1c, our data imply that muscle FAS and ACC1 are not stimulated by SREBP1c.
The mRNA expression levels of PPAR
, another lipogenesis-promoting transcription factor in skeletal muscle, strongly increased during 16 h of fasting. This contrasts with a previous study (34), which found no alterations of PPAR
mRNA expression level during fasting in rat skeletal muscle. However, these rats were fasted for 46 h, whereas our mice were fasted for only 16 h. Because mRNA expression levels of DGAT1 and DGAT2, which are involved in muscle TG synthesis (35), were significantly increased after fasting in the absence of muscle TG accumulation in this period, it can be speculated that prolonged fasting will be accompanied by muscle TG accumulation.
In the present study, PPAR
mRNA, which is involved in ß-oxidation, was increased after fasting. This is in agreement with a recent finding (36) showing increased muscle glucose uptake in mice treated with a PPAR
agonist (WY14,643).
In conclusion, 16 h of fasting in wild-type mice results in hepatic steatosis without changes in hepatic insulin sensitivity. In muscle, however, 16 h of fasting increased insulin sensitivity without changes in muscle TG content. Therefore, fasting induces differential changes in tissue-specific insulin sensitivity. In addition, changes in liver and muscle TG content are unlikely to be involved in changes in insulin sensitivity during fasting.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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Manuscript received November 4, 2004 and in revised form November 26, 2004.
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