An inhibitor of sweet taste response modulates glucose-induced phosphoinositide breakdown in rat pancreatic islets.

We studied the effect of a specific-competitive inhibitor of the sucrose taste response, p-nitrophenyl-D-glucopyranoside (PNP-Glu) on insulin release and phosphoinositide metabolism in rat pancreatic islets. The alpha-anomer, but not the beta-anomer, of PNP-Glu at a concentration of 5 mM inhibited insulin release induced by 10 mM glucose. Islets were labeled by exposure for 2 h to 10 uCi of myo-[2-3H] inositol solution supplemented with 2.8 mM glucose. Forty islets were then incubated in the presence of 10 mM LiCl, 1 mM inositol and 10 mM glucose with or without the anomers of PNP-Glu. [3H] radioactivity in the incubation medium remained significantly greater in the presence of the alpha-anomer of PNP-Glu than in the presence of glucose alone after 5- and 20-min incubation. The inositol monophosphate levels in the islets incubated with glucose alone were increased more than in the islets with alpha-anomer. The beta-anomer of PNP-Glu did not change either glucose-induced insulin release or phosphoinositide breakdown. A patch-clamp study revealed that neither anomer affected the glucose-dependent ATP-sensitive K(+)-channels. These results indicate that the anomeric preference for glucose in insulin release in the pancreatic islets is closely associated with phosphoinositide breakdown.