Insulin stimulates glucose uptake via a phosphatidylinositide 3-kinase-linked signaling pathway in bovine mammary epithelial cells

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of insulin on glucose uptake in lactating bovine mammary epithelial cells (BMEC). Primary BMEC were cultured in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium/nutrient mixture F-12 and treated with different levels of insulin (0, 5, 50, and 500 ng/mL) for 48 h after a 24-h starvation without fetal calf serum. Compared with the control cells (0 ng of insulin/mL), cell proliferation was enhanced by insulin treatment at all tested levels. Insulin significantly increased glucose uptake at a concentration of 500 ng/mL. In addition, the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide (0.5 mg/mL) counteracted the insulin-elevated glucose uptake, thereby suggesting that newly synthesized transporter protein might take part in the insulin-induced glucose uptake. Furthermore, pretreatment of the cells with SB203580, an inhibitor of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase, did not influence the insulin-induced glucose uptake, but LY294002, a specific inhibitor of phosphatidylinositide 3-kinase, significantly reduced the insulin-stimulated glucose uptake. These results indicated that insulin-induced glucose uptake in BMEC may involve the phosphatidylinositide 3-kinase- but not mitogen-activated protein kinase-mediated signaling pathways.