Increases in phosphorylation of the myosin II heavy chain but not regulatory light chains correlate with insulin secretion in rat pancreatic islets and RINm5F cells
Jr. Wilson et al., Increases in phosphorylation of the myosin II heavy chain but not regulatory light chains correlate with insulin secretion in rat pancreatic islets and RINm5F cells, DIABETES, 48(12), 1999, pp. 2383-2389
Although cytoskeletal proteins such as myosin II are implicated in the cont
rol of insulin secretion, their precise role is poorly understood. In other
secretory cells myosin II is predominantly regulated via the phosphorylati
on of the regulatory light chains (RLC). The current study was aimed at inv
estigating RLC phosphorylation in p-cells. In both the insulin-secreting ce
ll line RINm5F and rat pancreatic islets, the RLC was basally phosphorylate
d on the myosin light chain kinase sites (Ser(19)/Thr(18)). Phosphorylation
at these sites was not consistently increased by either metabolic stimuli
(glyceraldehyde/glucose) or the depolarizing agent KCl. The RLC sites phosp
horylated by protein kinase C (PKC) (Ser(1)/Ser(2)) mere unphosphorylated i
n the basal state, not affected by nutrients or KCl, and only slightly incr
eased by the PKC activator phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA). Like the
other insulin secretagogues, however, PMA did promote serine phosphorylatio
n of the myosin heavy chain (MHC) in RINm5F cells. Phosphopeptide mapping s
uggested that the same peptide was phosphorylated under both PMA and glycer
aldehyde stimulation, which further extends our previous study of the Ca2+-
dependent phosphorylation of this protein (Wilson JR, Ludowyke RI, Biden TJ
: Nutrient stimulation results in a rapid Ca2+-dependent threonine phosphor
ylation of myosin heavy chain in rat pancreatic islets and RINm5F cells. J
Biol Chem 273:22729-22737, 1998). Overall, our results demonstrate that in
RINm5F cells and rat pancreatic islets, MHC phosphorylation correlates bett
er with insulin secretion than phosphorylation of the RLC. We therefore pro
pose that in beta-cells, in contrast to other secretory cells, phosphorylat
ion of the MHC is more important than that of the RLC for regulation of the
myosin II protein complex during insulin secretion.