An elevated plasma level of homocysteine is a risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of glucagon on homocysteine metabolism in the rat. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with 4 mg/kg/day (3 injections per day) glucagon for 2 days while control rats received vehicle injections. Glucagon treatment resulted in a 30% de...

Rationale: Glucagon is involved in hepatic gluconeogenesis, playing a key role in type 2 diabetes. Ginsenosides are reported to have antidiabetic activities. Ginsenoside Rg1 is a major propanaxatriol-type saponin in ginseng. This study aims to investigate the regulatory effects of Rg1 on glucagon-induced hepatic glucose production. Methods: The effects of Rg1 were investigated in high-fat-diet ...

Exogenously administered somatostatin (SST) inhibits secretion of insulin and glucagon. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that islet SST regulates glucagon secretion by a local action. A number of studies utilizing SST antibodies have been performed to test this hypothesis, and their results have been conflicting. Five subtypes of SST receptor (SSTR1-5) mediate the effect of SST on target cells. ...

Glucagon is important for maintaining euglycemia during fasting/starvation, and abnormal glucagon secretion is associated with type 1 and type 2 diabetes; however, the mechanisms of hypoglycemia-induced glucagon secretion are poorly understood. We previously demonstrated that global deletion of mitochondrial uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2(-/-)) in mice impaired glucagon secretion from isolated isle...

This study was designed to characterize the impact of endurance training on the hepatic response to glucagon. We measured the effect of glucagon on hepatic glucose production (HGP) in resting trained ( n = 8) and untrained ( n = 8) healthy male subjects (maximal rate of O2 consumption: 65.9 ± 1.6 vs. 46.8 ± 0.6 ml O2 ⋅ kg-1 ⋅ min-1, respectively, P < 0.001). Endogenous insulin and glucagon were...

Glucagon has a positive inotropic effect in normal hearts but is ineffective in animals with chronic cardiac failure. To assess directly the influence of glucagon on the human myocardium, we measured contractility and activation of adenyl cyclase, the enzyme thought to mediate the inotropic action of glucagon, in left ventricular papillary muscles obtained from 12 patients at mitral valve repla...

Polyclonal antibodies were prepared against synthetic peptides corresponding to four different extramembrane segments of the rat glucagon receptor. The antibodies bound specifically to native glucagon receptor as judged by immunofluorescence microscopy of cultured cells expressing a synthetic gene for the receptor. Antibodies to peptides designated PR-15 and DK-12 were directed against amino ac...

Joon Bok Lee 06/15/2012 CHE 210D – Spring 2012 Glucagon Modeled as a Coarse-Grained Bead-String Polymer Final Project Summary Glucagon and insulin play major roles in regulating blood glucose levels, and people with type 1 diabetes mellitus need exogenous sources of these hormones for survival. One major issue faced by glucagon pumps that automate these exogenous injections is the problem of st...

Estradiol decreases meal size, food intake, and body weight in female rats. To investigate whether these effects of estradiol involve a change in the sensitivity of the signaling pathway through which pancreatic glucagon released during meals contributes to meal termination (satiation), glucagon or glucagon antibodies were infused via the hepatic portal vein in ovariectomized rats that were chr...

Intracerebroventricular (ICV) microinjection of glucagon (0.0025-2.5 micrograms) produced significant dose-dependent hyperglycemia in mice. This hyperglycemic effect was prevented by pretreatment with the sympathetic ganglionic blocker chlorisondamine chloride or bilateral adrenalectomy plus chemical sympathectomy with 6-hydroxydopamine. Similar pretreatments had no effect on the plasma glucose...