PRKACA

The processes of triacylglycerol and cholesterol ester hydrolysis are also regulated by subcellular compartmentalization: these lipids are packaged in cytosolic particles and the enzymes responsible for their hydrolysis, and perhaps for additional steps in their metabolism, are organized at the surfaces of these particles (e.g., Brasaemle et al. 2004). This organization is dynamic: the inactive form of HSL is not associated with the particles, but is translocated there after being phosphorylated. Conversely, perilipin, a major constituent of the particle surface, appears to block access of enzymes to the lipids within the particle; its phosphorylation allows greater access.

Here, HSL-mediated triacylglycerol hydrolysis is described as a pathway containing twelve reactions. The first six of these involve activation: phosphorylation of HSL, dimerization of HSL, disruption of CGI-58:perilipin complexes at the surfaces of cytosolic lipid particles, phosphorylation of perilipin, association of phosphorylated HSL with FABP, and translocation of HSL from the cytosol to the surfaces of lipid particles. The next four reactions are the hydrolysis reactions themselves: the hydrolysis of cholesterol esters, and the successive removal of three fatty acids from triacylglycerol. The last two reactions, dephosphorylation of perilipin and HSL, negatively regulate the pathway. These events are outlined in the figure below. Inputs (substrates) and outputs (products) of individual reactions are connected by black arrows; blue lines connect output activated enzymes to the other reactions that they catalyze.

Despite the undoubted importance of these reactions in normal human energy metabolism and in the pathology of diseases such as type II diabetes, they have been studied only to a limited extent in human cells and tissues. Most experimental data are derived instead from two rodent model systems: primary adipocytes from rats, and mouse 3T3-L1 cells induced to differentiate into adipocytes

Increased blood glucose levels from dietary carbohydrate play a dominant role in insulin release from the beta cells of the pancreas. Glucose catabolism in the beta cell is the transducer that links increased glucose levels to insulin release. Glucose uptake and glycolysis generate cytosolic pyruvate; pyruvate is transported to mitochondria and converted both to oxaloacetate which increases levels of TCA cycle intermediates, and to acetyl-CoA which is oxidized to CO2 via the TCA cycle. The rates of ATP synthesis and transport to the cytosol increase, plasma membrane ATP-sensitive inward rectifying potassium channels (KATP channels) close, the membrane depolarizes, and voltage-gated calcium channels in the membrane open (Muoio and Newgard 2008; Wiederkehr and Wollheim 2006).

Elevated calcium concentrations near the plasma membrane cause insulin secretion in two phases: an initial high rate within minutes of glucose stimulation and a slow, sustained release lasting longer than 30 minutes. In the initial phase, 50-100 insulin granules already docked at the membrane are exocytosed. Exocytosis is rendered calcium-dependent by Synaptotagmin V/IX, a calcium-binding membrane protein located in the membrane of the docked granule, although the exact action of Synapototagmin in response to calcium is unknown. Calcium also causes a translocation of reserve granules within the cell towards the plasma membrane for release in the second, sustained phase of secretion. Human cells contain L-type (continually reopening), P/Q-type (long burst), R-type (long burst), and T-type (short burst) calcium channels and these partly account for differences between the two phases of secretion. Other factors that distinguish the two phases are not yet fully known (Bratanova-Tochkova et al. 2002; Henquin 2000; MacDonald et al. 2005)