KOH, K. H. C., ZHAO, J., LUO, S. X., ALI, Y., CHEN, W. N., CHAN, J. C. Y. (2026). Combination amino acids and glucose effects on insulin and GLP-1 secretion. Biochemical Journal. https://doi.org/10.1042/bcj20253316
Abstract:
Dietary nutrients such as amino acids possess an insulinogenic effect. However, not all amino acids were meticulously investigated for their effect on both insulin and incretin secretion, and the effect of amino acids given in different combinations remained incompletely characterized. In this work, we reported the quantitative effect of individual and combinatorial amino acids in conjunction with low and high glucose respectively on insulin secretion from human islets and on GLP-1 secretion from secretin tumour cell (STC-1). STC-1 cells were incubated with amino acid treatment solutions individually and in combinations at low and high glucose to investigate GLP-1 secretion. Batches of 15 islets were sequentially treated with 3 mM glucose, combinatorial amino acid treatment solutions at low and high glucose and finally 25 mM KCl to quantify insulin secretion. Lysine, threonine, tryptophan, phenyalalnine and aspartic acid significantly increased GLP-1 secretion in STC-1 cells compared to negative control. Branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) stimulated greater GLP-1 secretion only at high glucose and significantly induce insulin secretion in islets even in low glucose. Other amino acid combinations tested were able to augment GLP-1 secretion even in the absence of glucose but failed to further stimulate insulin secretion in human islets when given concurrently at higher glucose concentrations. In conclusion, the findings from our work could be used to infer the expected insulinogenic effect and glycaemic response for proteins with different amino acids compositions.
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Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Funding Info:
This research / project is supported by the A*STAR - A*STAR BMRC Central Research Fund 431 (Applied and Translational Research)
Grant Reference no. : NA
This research / project is supported by the A*STAR - A*STAR I&E Gap funding
Grant Reference no. : I23D1AG028
Yusuf Ali is supported by the Ministry of Education Singapore Academic Research Fund (MOE-T2EP30221-0003, MOE-T2EP30124-0019, RG30/23) and the National Research Foundation (NRF2020-THE003-0006). This work was also partly supported by the LKCMedicine Healthcare Research Fund (Diabetes Research), established through the generous support of alumni of Nanyang Technological University.
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This is an open access article published by Portland Press Limited on behalf of the Biochemical Society and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0