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Identification Of Persistent Defects In Insulin Receptor Structure And Function In Capillary Endothelial Cells From Diabetic Rats, Ching Fai Kwok, Barry J. Goldstein, Dirk Muller-Wieland, Tian-Shing Lee, C. Ronald Kahn, George L. King

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

Insulin actions and receptors were studied in capillary endothelial cells cultured from diabetic BB rats and their nondiabetic colony mates. The endothelial cells from diabetic rats of 2 mo duration had persistent biological and biochemical defects in culture. Compared with normal rats, endothelial cells from diabetic rats grew 44% more slowly. Binding studies of insulin and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) showed that cells from diabetic rats had 50% decrease of insulin receptor binding (nondiabetic: 4.6 +/- 0.7; diabetic: 2.6 +/- 0.4% per milligram protein, P < 0.01), which was caused by a 50% decrease in the number of binding sites per milligram protein, whereas IGF-I binding was not changed. Insulin stimulation of 2-deoxy-glucose uptake and alpha-aminoisobutyric acid uptake were also severely impaired with a 80-90% decrease in maximal stimulation, in parallel with a 62% decrease in insulin-stimulated autophosphorylation (P < 0.05). ¹²⁵I-insulin cross-linking revealed an 140-kD alpha subunit of the insulin receptor similar to …