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Insulin Degradation By Adipose Tissue. Studies At Several Levels Of Cellular Organization, Barry J. Goldstein, James N. Livingston

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

A systematic study of the degradation of physiological concentrations of ¹²⁵I-labelled insulin was performed in intact fat-pads, isolated adipocytes and subcellular fractions of isolated adipocytes. The findings indicate that insulin is rapidly degraded to low-molecular-weight peptides and/or amino acids by the intact tissue and isolated cells. Of the total insulin-degradation products present after incubation with an intact fat-pad, 94% is recovered in the medium, indicating that these products are not retained by the cells or tissue. The plasma membranes do not degrade insulin significantly in the absence of reduced glutathione, and over 99% of the cellular degradative capacity is …