The FASEB Journal, Vol 8, 777-781, Copyright © 1994 by The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

RESEARCH COMMUNICATIONS

Large amount of (apo)ferritin in the pancreatic insulin cell and its stimulation by glucose

MJ MacDonald, JD Cook, ML Epstein and CH Flowers
Childrens Diabetes Center, Madison, Wisconsin.

In screening a rat pancreatic islet cDNA library by differential hybridization for transcripts increased by glucose, the H chain of ferritin, an iron storage protein, was identified. An ELISA for rat ferritin showed that the insulin cell contains a surprisingly high amount of ferritin comparable to that of iron storage tissues. Most of the ferritin was located in the beta cell, as judged from colocalization of ferritin and insulin by immunohistochemical staining of the pancreas. Islets maintained for 24 h in culture medium containing 20 mM glucose are capable of releasing insulin in response to stimulation with glucose, but islets maintained at 1 mM glucose are incapacitated in response to glucose (see ref 1). Immunoassayable ferritin was threefold higher in 20 mM glucose islets than in 1 mM glucose islets and the glucose-stimulated increase in H ferritin mRNA was confirmed by probing Northern blots of islet RNA with authentic H and L chain cDNAs. This showed that H ferritin mRNA was four- to eightfold higher in 20 mM-glucose islets than in 1 mM glucose islets, whereas L ferritin mRNA was decreased 75-90% in 20 mM glucose islets relative to 1 mM glucose islets. The physiological reason for the abundance of (apo)ferritin in the beta cell is not readily apparent because the islet contains very little iron. Whether or not ferritin is used to handle another metal such as zinc, which is plentiful in the beta cell, is unknown. Another potential reason for ferritin in the beta cell is that ferritin has antioxidant properties and the beta cell is particularly sensitive to oxygen radicals. Regardless of its physiologic purpose, the high amount of ferritin can explain why iron is preferentially retained in the insulin cell and causes diabetes in diseases of iron overloading.

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