No evidence of attenuation of placental insulin-stimulated Akt phosphorylation and amino acid transport in obesity and gestational diabetes mellitus.

No evidence of attenuation of placental insulin-stimulated Akt phosphorylation and amino acid transport in obesity and gestational diabetes mellitus. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2019 Oct 01;: Authors: Castillo-Castrejon M, Jansson T, Powell TL Abstract Pregnancies complicated by obesity and/or gestational diabetes (GDM) are associated with peripheral insulin resistance, however the insulin responsiveness of the placenta in these pregnancy complications remains largely unknown. We tested the hypothesis that primary human trophoblast cells and placental villous explants will be insulin responsive characterized by amino acid transport, Akt and Erk activity with maternal obesity and/or GDM.We evaluated term placentas from women with normal body mass index (BMI) (NORMAL, n=15), obesity (OB, n=11), normal BMI with GDM (N-GDM, n=11) and obesity with GDM (OB-GDM, n=11). In a subgroup, primary human trophoblast cells (PHT) were isolated and in an independent subgroup placental villous explants were exposed to varying concentrations of insulin. Amino acid transport capacity and insulin signaling activity were determined. Insulin significantly increased amino acid transport activity to a similar degree in PHT cells isolated from NORMAL (+21%), N-GDM (+38%), OB (+37%) and OB-GDM (+35%) pregnancies. Insulin increased Akt and Erk phosphorylation in PHT cells (3-fold) and in villous explants (2-fold) in all groups to a similar degree.In contrast...
Source: American Journal of Physiology. Endocrinology and Metabolism - Category: Physiology Authors: Tags: Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab Source Type: research