Adrenergic stimulation of glucose uptake in brown adipocytes

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to investigate adrenergically stimulated glucose uptake in brown adipose tissue (BAT) with the focus on receptor subtypes and intracellular signalling pathways. As a model system, we used primary cultured brown adipocytes.Adrenergic stimulation of glucose uptake occurs via β3-AR in wild type cells and β1-/α1-ARs in β3-KO cells, includes activation of adenylyl cyclase and cAMP formation, activation of PKA, PI3K, PKC and AMPK (Paper I, II, III). Interestingly, UCP1 activity is not required for the AMPK function in brown adipocytes (Paper III). Long-term adrenergic stimulation of glucose uptake induces an increase in GLUT1 mRNA and protein levels stimulating GLUT1 translocation to the plasma membrane (Paper IV).