Visfatin regulates insulin secretion, insulin receptor signalling and mRNA expression of diabetes-related genes in mouse pancreatic β-cells

The role of the adipocyte-derived factor visfatin in metabolism remains controversial, although some pancreatic β-cell-specific effects have been reported. This study investigated the effects of visfatin upon insulin secretion, insulin receptor activation and mRNA expression of key diabetes-related genes in clonal mouse pancreatic β-cells. β-TC6 cells were cultured in RPMI 1640 and were subsequently treated with recombinant visfatin. One-hour static insulin secretion was measured by ELISA. Phospho-specific ELISA and western blotting were used to detect insulin receptor activation. Real-time SYBR Green PCR array technology was used to measure the expression of 84 diabetes-related genes in both treatment and control cells. Incubation with visfatin caused significant changes in the mRNA expression of several key diabetes-related genes, including marked up-regulation of insulin (9-fold increase), hepatocyte nuclear factor (HNF)1β (32-fold increase), HNF4α (16-fold increase) and nuclear factor κB (40-fold increase). Significant down-regulation was seen in angiotensin-converting enzyme (−3.73-fold) and UCP2 (−1.3-fold). Visfatin also caused a significant 46% increase in insulin secretion compared to control (P