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Regulation of Gene Expression by Insulin

  • Chapter
Insulin

Part of the book series: Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology ((HEP,volume 92))

Abstract

Insulin exerts a variety of biological effects — some of which occur within seconds to minutes, such as glucose transport and the regulation of enzyme activity. Other effects of insulin occur over hours to days, including the “growth effects” of insulin which have traditionally included RNA and DNA synthesis. Until the last few years, insulin’s effects on RNA synthesis were studied by measuring uridine incorporation into total cellular RNA or by measuring the production of specific immunoprecipitable proteins. The study of overall RNA synthesis does not determine specific effects of insulin on the expression of a single mRNA. The study of total protein synthesis, precipitated from either in vitro translation assays or tissue or serum samples also does not necessarily describe the effects of insulin on expression of a specific mRNA. Besides affecting mRNA concentrations, insulin may alter the ability to translate an mRNA into protein and can alter the stability of a protein. Since the last volume on insulin in this series (HASSELBLATT and BRUCHHAUSEN 1975) molecular biological techniques have become widely used to study insulin’s regulation of specific genes. This has led to the design of experiments analyzing the effects of insulin on cellular concentrations of specific mRNAs using specific cDNA probes that hybridize with only one mRNA species. This chapter will review the ever-expanding group of genes regulated by insulin at the level of mRNA transcription, or at a step following transcription, but prior to translation of the protein.

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© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Messina, J.L. (1990). Regulation of Gene Expression by Insulin. In: Cuatrecasas, P., Jacobs, S. (eds) Insulin. Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, vol 92. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74098-5_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74098-5_18

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