The glycolytic enzyme glucokinase plays an important role in the regulation of insulin secretion and recent studies have shown that mutations in the human glucokinase gene are a common cause of an autosomal dominant form of non-insulin-dependent (type 2) diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) that has an onset often during childhood. The majority of the mutations that have been identified are missense mutat...

AIMS/INTRODUCTION Src, a non-receptor tyrosine kinase, regulates a wide range of cellular functions, and hyperactivity of Src is involved in impaired glucose metabolism in pancreatic β-cells. However, the physiological role of Src in glucose metabolism in normal, unstressed β-cells remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated the role of Src in insulin secretion and glucose metabolism...

The mutual role of glucose and insulin in the regulation of glucokinase and GLUT2 glucose transporter gene expression in pancreatic B-cells and liver has been studied in vivo in the rat. Glucokinase mRNA was quantified by competitive reverse-transcriptase PCR analysis, and GLUT2 mRNA by Northern-blot analysis in total RNA fractions. As in the liver, glucokinase mRNA decreased by 64% in pancreat...

To test the hypothesis that glucokinase is a critical regulator of neuronal glucosensing, glucokinase activity was increased, using a glucokinase activator drug, or decreased, using RNA interference combined with calcium imaging in freshly dissociated ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMN) neurons or primary ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH; VMN plus arcuate nucleus) cultures. To assess the vali...

Clostridium thermocellum was shown to ferment glucose in a medium containing salts and 0.5% yeast extract. An active glucokinase was obtained with improved conditions for growth, assay, and preparation of cell extracts. Cell extracts appear to contain a glucokinase inhibitor that interferes with the assays at high protein concentrations. Glucokinase activity is stimulated about 60% by pretreatm...

Glucose regulates the cellular content of glucokinase in the pancreatic ,B cell by altering the level of the enzyme. We investigated the existence of a second regulatory pathway, an alteration in the catalytic activity, by comparing V.m and protein levels of glucokinase in rat islets cultured under high glucose conditions (16.7 mM) for 6, 14, and 24 h. The V.,., was increased by glucose at all ...

Hyperglycemia is a common feature of diabetes mellitus. It results from a decrease in glucose utilization by the liver and peripheral tissues and an increase in hepatic glucose production. Glucose phosphorylation by glucokinase is an initial event in glucose metabolism by the liver. However, glucokinase gene expression is very low in diabetic animals. Transgenic mice expressing the P-enolpyruva...

The glucose-phosphorylating enzyme glucokinase has structural, kinetic, and molecular genetic features that are ideal for its primary role as glucose sensor in a network of neuro/endocrine sentinel cells that maintain glucose homeostasis in many vertebrates including humans. The glucokinase-containing, insulin-producing beta-cells of the pancreas take the prominent lead in this network, functio...

Glucokinase functions as a glucose sensor in pancreatic beta-cells and regulates hepatic glucose metabolism. A total of 83 probands were referred for a diagnostic screening of mutations in the glucokinase (GCK) gene. We found 11 different mutations (V62A, G72R, L146R, A208T, M210K, Y215X, S263P, E339G, R377C, S453L, and IVS5 + 1G>C) in 14 probands. Functional characterization of recombinant glu...

Glucokinase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase are key enzymes of glucose metabolism in the rat liver. The former is considered to be instrumental in regulating glucose hepatic release/uptake according to the glycaemia level, and cytosolic phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase is a major flux-generating enzyme for gluconeogenesis. The level of expression of both enzymes and the regulation of the...