AJP - Endocrinology and Metabolism, Vol 246, Issue 3 211-E215, Copyright © 1984 by American Physiological Society
Sex difference in insulin-stimulated glucose transport in rat and human adipocytes
J. E. Foley, A. Kashiwagi, H. Chang, T. P. Huecksteadt, S. Lillioja, M. A. Verso and G. Reaven
In an effort to determine whether differences in basal and maximum
insulin-stimulated glucose transport by isolated adipocytes are a function
of donor sex, we measured glucose transport rates in the absence and
presence of 8 nM insulin in adipocytes isolated from the abdominal
subcutaneous fat tissue of nine male and ten female subjects with varying
degrees of obesity and in adipocytes isolated from the abdominal
subcutaneous and retroperitoneal fat tissue of (180-220 g) male and female
rats. Because maximal insulin-stimulated glucose transport rate per cell of
adipocytes isolated from subcutaneous abdominal tissue of male and female
subjects was constant in each sex, the data have been normalized on the
basis of transport per cell. The results demonstrated that basal and
maximal insulin-stimulated glucose transport per cell was 53-75% higher per
cell in the females versus males in adipocytes from human subcutaneous
abdominal adipose tissue (P less than 0.01). A similar difference in
glucose transport rate between males and females (P less than 0.001) was
also found in rat abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue. Adipocytes
isolated from rat retroperitoneal adipose tissue had higher transport rates
(approximately three-fold) and smaller sex differences (35% higher in
females) than found in adipocytes from rat and human subcutaneous tissue.
These results indicate that basal and maximum insulin-stimulated glucose
transport is higher by adipocytes isolated from females and that this
difference is independent of adipose cell size and species.
