Interaction between insulin and IGF-I receptors in insulin sensitive and insulin resistant human cells and tissues

Insulin and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) are two related peptides with similar structure. They mediate their effects by binding to their respective receptor, the insulin receptor (IR) and the IGF-I receptor (IGF-IR) and induce intracellular signalling cascades resulting in metabolic or mitogenic effects. The relative abundance of IR and IGF-IR is of importance for the type of effect that is the outcome of the signal. There are few studies investigating the relative receptor abundance and its effects in human cells and tissues. In this thesis we wanted to study abundance and regulation of insulin and IGF-I receptors in different human cells and tissues and examine the effects of variations in insulin and IGF-I receptor abundance between different cells and tissues. We examined IR and IGF-IR gene and protein expression and the effects of insulin and IGF-I on receptor phosphorylation, DNA synthesis and glucose transport. Our results show that there is a large variation in the distribution of IR and IGF-IR in different human cells and tissues. Renal artery intima-media expressed predominantly IGF-IR while in liver IR was the predominant receptor type. Differentiation of human preadipocytes results in a change in relative expression of IGFIR to IR. Mature adipocytes express almost 10-fold more IR than IGF-IR while preadipocytes express almost the same amounts of both receptors. Mature tissues, such as liver, skeletal muscle, myometrium and renal artery intima-media, express predominantly IR-B. Preadipocytes express IR-A and the expression of IR-B is induced during differentiation. We could show the presence of insulin/IGF-I hybrid receptors in preadipocytes but not in mature adipocytes. Cultured endothelial cells express mostly IGF-IR and insulin/IGF-I hybrid receptors and these cells respond mainly to IGF-I. Due to the large abundance of IR mature adipocytes are sensitive to insulin but insensitive to IGF-I whereas preadipocytes expressing equal amounts of both receptors respond to both insulin and IGF-I. Insulin and IGF-I are only partial agonists to each other’s receptors in human preadipocytes and adipocytes. The overall results indicate that differential expression of IGF-IR and IR is a key mechanism in regulation of growth and metabolism.