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Experimental Studies |
Cardiovascular Center, Cornell University Medical Center (M.B., L.M.R.), New York, New York 10021; the Division of Endocrinology/Hypertension, Wayne State University Medical Center (M.B., O.B., M.B., L.M.R.), Detroit, Michigan 48201; and the Department of Physiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine (R.K.G), Bronx, New York 10463
Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: L. M. Resnick, M.D., Division of Endocrinology and Hypertension, Wayne State University Medical Center, University Health Center-4H, 4201 St. Antoine, Detroit, Michigan 48201.
| Abstract |
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Together, these data demonstrate ionic aspects of insulin resistance in hypertension and suggest that Cai and Mgi levels may regulate cellular responsiveness to insulin. This may help to explain the different vascular actions attributed to insulin in normal compared with insulin-resistant states such as hypertension.
| Introduction |
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Furthermore, insulin itself has primary direct cellular ionic actions, independent of glucose, to increase Cai and Mgi in peripheral red blood cells, platelets, and vascular smooth muscle cells (10, 11, 12). As increasing Cai might promote vasoconstriction, whereas stimulating Mgi would have an opposite vasodilatory effect, we wondered whether reports of insulin promoting vasoconstriction or vasodilation in different clinical circumstances (13) might result from an imbalance of insulins ionic actions. Therefore, in the present study we compared the direct in vitro effects of insulin on Cai and Mgi in red blood cells obtained from normal and hypertensive subjects and in magnesium-depleted cells from normotensive (NT) subjects. Our results document ionic aspects of insulin resistance in hypertension and suggest, more generally, a role for Cai and Mgi in determining cellular insulin responsiveness.
| Subjects and Methods |
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To investigate whether different insulin responses in cells from EH vs. NT subjects were due to differences in basal cellular ion levels, we also measured ionic responses to insulin in red cells from NT after depleting these cells of Mgi with either of two treatments (n = 7 for each): 1) A23187 (10 µmol/L) plus ethylenediamine tetraacetate (1 mmol/L) in a calcium-free medium, or 2) an extracellular glucose concentration of 15 mmol/L, which consistently lowers Mgi and raises Cai (14).
31P-NMR analysis of Mgi
As described in detail previously (7, 14), 10 mL heparinized blood were spun at 2000 rpm for 10 min, the plasma was discarded, and the remaining erythrocyte fraction was decanted into a 12-mm NMR tube. 31P-NMR spectra were recorded at 81 MHz and 37 C for 30 min on an XL200 spectrometer (Varian Associates, Sunnyvale, CA) in the Fourier transform mode with wide band proton noise decoupling.
Mgi was determined according to the following equation
(15): Mgi = [Kd (MgATP)] x
(
-1 - 1), where Kd (MgATP) is the
apparent dissociation constant for the reaction MgATP =
Mg2+ + ATP (= 0.4 x 10-5 M under
physiological conditions at 37 C and pH 7.2), and
=
(ATP)free/(ATP)total, as determined from the
chemical shift difference in the
- and ß-phosphoryl group
resonances of ATP in the 31P-NMR spectrum.
19F-NMR analysis of Cai
Cai was determined in by a modification of the method of Levy et al. (16), using the fluorinated, membrane-permeable calcium chelator quin-MF/AM, as previously described (7, 10). Blood (10 mL) was spun at 2000 rpm for 10 min, the plasma was separated, and the packed cells were suspended in 100 mL Hanks Balanced Salt Solution buffer (HBSS) with 0.35 g NaHCO3 to achieve a pH of 7.4. Cells were loaded in a shaking water bath with 20 µmol/L quin-MF/AM for 25 min at 37 C and then spun at 2000 rpm for 10 min. The medium was aspirated, and the cells were resuspended in fresh HBSS together with the subjects plasma and then incubated at 37 C for 90 min. Cells were recentrifuged, washed again with fresh HBSS together with plasma, and after a final centrifugation were decanted into 10-mm NMR tubes. 19F-NMR spectra were run on a Varian VXR-500 NMR spectometer operating at 470 MHz at 37 C. Free cytosolic calcium was calculated according to the formula: Cai = Kd,app x (Ca-quin-MF)/(quin-MF) (7), where Kd,app is the apparent dissociation constant of Ca2+ and quin-MF = 139 nmol/L in red cell hemolysates at 37 C; (Ca-quin-MF)/(quin-MF) was calculated from the ratio of the areas of the quin-MF vs. Ca-quin-MF resonances peaks on the 19F-NMR spectrum.
Statistical analysis
Data for the responses of each cellular ion species to insulin were analyzed for statistical significance using repeated measures ANOVA and subsequent post-hoc t tests (Super-Anova, Abacus Concepts, Berkeley, CA) for the effects of insulin over time at 0, 30, 60, 120, and 180 min. The relations of insulin-induced changes in Cai and Mgi to the basal Cai and Mgi levels were analyzed by linear regression analysis with Pearson correlation coefficients. The percent change in the response of each ion to insulin was calculated for each subject as the maximal increment from basal levels of both Cai and Mgi. All values are reported as the mean ± SEM.
| Results |
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The differences between the ionic responsiveness to insulin of EH
compared to NT cells were further analyzed by comparing the induced
changes in both Cai and Mgi values at each time
point (i.e. Cai at 30 vs. 0 min,
Cai at 60 vs. 0 min, etc.; Figs. 1
and 2
, lower panel) and by comparing the integrated, area
under the curve, total change in Cai and Mgi
levels for both NT and EH cells (Fig. 3
).
Cai responses to insulin appeared blunted in the EH
vs. NT subjects throughout, although the changes were
significantly different only at 60 and 120 min. Similarly,
insulin-induced changes in Mgi values were significantly
blunted in cells from EH vs. NT subjects at 30, 60, and 120
min.
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Insulin added to cells from NT subjects that were depleted of
Mgi displayed a blunted response pattern similar
to that observed in cells from EH subjects. Each treatment resulted in
equivalent lower preinsulin Mgi levels (A23187, 161 ±
3 µmol/L; hyperglycemia, 159 ± 5 µmol/L; P <
0.001 for both treatments vs. untreated cells) and resulted
in a similar blunting of insulin action on Mgi [maximum
change in Mgi, 13 ± 2 µmol/L (A23187)
vs. 15 ± 3 µmol/L (hyperglycemia); P
= NS] compared to those in EH cells (maximum change in
Mgi, 17 ± 6.1 µmol/L; Fig. 6
). Once
again, for all NT cells, Mgi responses closely followed
basal preinsulin Mgi (r = 0.637; P <
0.001; Fig. 7
).
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| Discussion |
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As peripheral vasoconstrictor tone is critically dependent on intracellular cation content (17, 18), we wondered to what extent the hypothesized contribution of insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia to the hypertensive process (19) might be mediated by alterations of insulins ionic actions (10) rather than its effects on glucose utilization (5). Our present results suggest that insulin resistance is indeed an ionic phenomenon. Specifically, the effects of insulin on Cai and Mgi levels in cells from EH and NT subjects were significantly different. Thus, in red blood cells from EH subjects, exhibiting elevated basal Cai and reduced basal Mgi values, the ability of insulin to stimulate Cai was blunted, and the effect of insulin to stimulate Mgi levels was completely suppressed. Lastly, depleting Mgi levels in cells from NT subjects rendered them insulin resistant to an extent similar to that found in cells from EH subjects. These observations not only demonstrate an ionic component to cellular insulin resistance that has not been adequately appreciated, but further suggest that basal alterations in the cellular free divalent cation content in hypertension may at least in part be responsible for the blunted insulin responsiveness observed in these subjects.
That the lower Mgi and/or elevated Cai content reported in hypertensive and diabetic cells (7) may directly cause insulin resistance (6) is also consistent with previous reports in the literature. Thus, fasting insulin levels as well as the endogenous hyperinsulinemic response to oral glucose loading in patients with EH closely follow fasting Mgi and Cai levels (9, 20). The higher the fasting Cai and/or the lower the basal Mgi, the greater the hyperinsulinemia. Conversely, Draznin demonstrated that increasing the Cai content produces insulin resistance in adipocytes from normal subjects (21, 22) and inhibits the effect of insulin on glucose transport in isolated adipocytes from NIDDM and obese patients as well (23). Clinically, decreases in Cai levels after infusions of the calcium channel antagonist nifedipine were associated with an improved insulin-mediated glucose uptake (24). A reduced magnesium content may also contribute to insulin resistance, as magnesium is important in the regulation of glucose utilization and in the action of the rate-limiting enzymes of glycolysis (25, 26). Using different techniques, Paolisso et al. reported defective insulin-mediated total cellular magnesium accumulation in both EH and NIDDM (27, 28). Alzaid et al. demonstrated a similar blunting of insulin action on circulating magnesium in diabetes (29). Lastly, magnesium depletion may underlie the hypertensive response to dietary fructose loading in rats (30).
Our data, although preliminary, may be clinically significant. First, the demonstration here of ionic aspects of insulin resistance in hypertension helps to explain more directly the link between altered insulin action and vascular disease; increased Cai as well as lower Mgi both cause vasoconstriction and/or frank hypertension (25, 31). Secondly, our data provide circumstantial evidence that the ionic defects described here are a primary lesion, rather than secondary to insulin resistance itself, as 1) the decreased ability of insulin to elevate Cai cannot explain the basal elevation of Cai characteristic of insulin resistance states such as hypertension, obesity, and NIDDM (7, 31); and 2) inducing Mgi deficiency in normal cells reproduced the same hypertensive pattern of blunted insulin responses.
Thirdly, the marked dissociation of Mgi vs. Cai responses to insulin in EH suggests that different reported vascular actions of insulin, to constrict or dilate (13), would be the expected outcome of an unopposed elevation of Cai in insulin-resistant states such as hypertension, obesity, and NIDDM, promoting vasoconstriction compared to the balanced normal effects of insulin to stimulate both intracellular calcium and magnesium levels (10).
Lastly, we were impressed by the overall relations, independent of diagnostic assignment, between basal cellular ion content and ion responses to insulin. Indeed, as prior magnesium depletion of normal cells rendered these cells insulin resistant, the property of cellular insulin resistance may not be related to the disease state per se in which it occurs, such as hypertension, as much as to the underlying cellular ionic lesion characteristic of those disease states, including NIDDM and obesity as well as hypertension, in which insulin resistance is known to occur (7, 8). A similar pattern of ion-dependent insulin hyporesponsiveness has also been recently reported by our group in peripheral white cells in pregnant NT and hypertensive subjects (32). Furthermore, basal Mgi levels in situ in skeletal muscle have been recently reported to predict the rate of extracellular glucose disposal after oral glucose loading (20).
This study also has limitations that should be acknowledged. First, in this in vitro study, we did not assess indices of endogenous glucose and insulin metabolism among the various normal and hypertensive subjects; thus, we cannot comment on the relation of cellular ionic responses to basal insulin and/or insulin to glucose ratios. Second, we have not addressed the mechanism(s) of insulins ionic actions in this study. Thus, although no intracellular storage sites for calcium and/or magnesium exist in peripheral red cells, we can only presume that insulin-induced elevations of Mgi and Cai reflect cellular uptake from the extracellular space, rather than altered distribution of these ions intracellularly. The participation of other transduction systems, such as kinases, phosphatases, lipases, cyclic nucleotides, etc., was also not investigated. Lastly, we cannot determine the extent to which this behavior is unique to insulin or to the peripheral red cell. Nevertheless, we consider it a reasonable hypothesis that our results reflect a more general property of cellular ion homeostasis, in which steady state levels of divalent cations regulate cellular responsiveness to a variety of stimuli (33). This latter hypothesis is consistent with enhanced cellular calcium responses to agonist stimulation observed after weight reduction lowered basal cytosolic free calcium levels (34). All of these possibilities need to be addressed by future studies.
Received October 24, 1996.
Revised March 3, 1997.
Accepted March 10, 1997.
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