Impact of Oxidative Stress and Peroxisome Proliferator–Activated Receptor γ Coactivator-1α in Hepatic Insulin Resistance

Impact of Oxidative Stress and Peroxisome Proliferator–Activated Receptor γ Coactivator-1α in Hepatic Insulin Resistance Naoki Kumashiro 1 , Yoshifumi Tamura 1 , Toyoyoshi Uchida 1 , Takeshi Ogihara 1 , Yoshio Fujitani 1 2 , Takahisa Hirose 1 2 , Hideki Mochizuki 3 , Ryuzo Kawamori 1 2 and Hirotaka Watada 1 1 Department of Medicine, Metabolism, and Endocrinology, Juntendo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan 2 Center for Therapeutic Innovations in Diabetes, Juntendo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan 3 Department of Neurology, Juntendo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan Corresponding author: Hirotaka Watada, hwatada{at}med.juntendo.ac.jp Abstract OBJECTIVE— Recent studies identified accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as a common pathway causing insulin resistance. However, whether and how the reduction of ROS levels improves insulin resistance remains to be elucidated. The present study was designed to define this mechanism. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS— We investigated the effect of overexpression of superoxide dismutase (SOD)1 in liver of obese diabetic model ( db/db ) mice by adenoviral injection. RESULTS— db/db mice had high ROS levels in liver. Overexpression of SOD1 in liver of db/db mice reduced hepatic ROS and blood glucose level. These changes were accompanied by improvement in insulin resistance and reduction of hepatic gene expression of phosphoenol-pyruvate carboxykinase and peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α), which is the main regulator of gluconeogenic genes. The inhibition of hepatic insulin resistance was accompanied by attenuation of phosphorylation of cAMP-responsive element-binding protein (CREB), which is a main regulator of PGC-1α expression, and attenuation of Jun NH 2 -terminal kinase (JNK) phosphorylation. Simultaneously, overexpression of SOD1 in db/db mice enhanced the inactivation of forkhead box class O1, another regulator of PGC-1α expression, without the changes of insulin-induced Akt phosphorylation in liver. In hepatocyte cell lines, ROS induced phosphorylation of JNK and CREB, and the latter, together with PGC-1α expression, was inhibited by a JNK inhibitor. CONCLUSIONS— Our results indicate that the reduction of ROS is a potential therapeutic target of liver insulin resistance, at least partly by the reduced expression of PGC-1α. Footnotes Published ahead of print at http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org on 16 May 2008. Readers may use this article as long