Hormonal regulation of amino acid transport and gluconeogenesis in primary cultures of adult rat liver parenchymal cells.

Amino acid transport was studied in primary cultures of parenchymal cells isolated from adult rat liver by a collagenase perfusion technique and maintained as a monolayer in a serum-free culture medium. These cells carried out gluconeogenesis from three carbon precursors (alanine, pyruvate, and lactate) in response to glucagon addition. Amino acid transport was assayed by measuring the uptake of the nonmetabolizable amino acid, alpha-aminoisobutyric acid (AIB). Addition of insulin or glucagon to culture rat liver parenchymal cells resulted in an increased influx of AIB transport. The glucocorticoid, dexamethasone, when added alone to cultures did not affect AIB transport. However, prior or simultaneous addition of dexamethasone to glucagon-treated cells caused a strong potentiation of the glucagon induction of AIB transport. Kinetic analysis of the effects of insulin and glucagon demonstrated that insulin increased the Vmax for transport without changing the Km while glucagon primarily decreased the Km for AIB transport. The effect of dexamethasone was to increase the Vmax of the low Km system.