Proteomic exploration of pancreatic islets in mice null for the α 2A adrenergic receptor

Abstract

The present studies extend recent findings that mice null for the α2A adrenergic receptor (α2A AR KO mice) lack suppression of exogenous secretagogue-stimulated insulin secretion in response to α2 AR agonists by evaluating the endogenous secretagogue, glucose, ex vivo, and providing in vivo data that baseline insulin levels are elevated and baseline glucose levels are decreased in α2A AR KO mice. These latter findings reveal that the α2A AR subtype regulates glucose-stimulated insulin release in response to endogenous catecholamines in vivo. The changes in α2A AR responsiveness and resultant changes in insulin/glucose homeostasis encouraged us to utilize proteomics strategies to identify possible α2A AR downstream signaling molecules or other resultant changes due to perturbation of α2A AR expression. Although agonist stimulation of islets from wild type (WT) mice did not significantly alter islet protein profiles, several proteins were enriched in islets from α2A AR KO mice when compared with those from WT mice, including an enzyme participating in insulin protein processing. The present studies document the important role of the α2A AR subtype in tonic suppression of insulin release in response to endogenous catecholamines as well as exogenous α2 agonists and provide insights into pleiotropic changes that result from loss of α2A AR expression and tonic suppression of insulin release. © 2005 Society for Endocrinology.