Hepatic glucokinase activity is the primary defect in alloxan-induced diabetes of mice

Alloxan is a classical diabetogen which is used to achieve β-cell destruction and type 1 diabetes due to its selective cytotoxic effect on pancreatic β-cells. Although alloxan-induced diabetes is widely used in the laboratory to mimic diabetic pathology and for screening antidiabetic drugs, there has not been any comprehensive research in vivo on its diabetogenicity. In our study, alloxan-induced diabetic mice were generated by a single intravenous injection of alloxan (100 mg/kg). Our data show that these mice possess hyperglycemia, hypoinsulinism and morphological characteristics of impaired pancreas that are consistent with the accepted diabetogenic effects of alloxan. Alloxan is believed to confer its diabetogenic effect by inhibiting pancreatic glucokinase activity, leading to pancreatic β-cell death. We examined the effects of alloxon on the other major site of glucokinase expression, the liver. Our results show that alloxan treatment led to an 81% reduction in glucokinase immunoreactivity and a greater than 90% reduction in glucokinase enzymatic activity in the liver, suggesting that alloxan's toxicity is not specific to the pancreas. Given the important role of glucokinase as a glucose sensor, and our findings on the effects of alloxon on liver glucokinase activity we propose that the effects on the liver are the primary contributor to pathogenesis in alloxan-induced diabetes. Alloxan-induced diabetes is thus a multifactor-promoted diabetes model which still could be used to examine the antidiabetic effects of compounds prompting insulin secretion and increasing liver-specific glucokinase activity. Despite alloxan-induced diabetes being inconsistent with the natural pathogenesis of human diabetes, further research on the causes of decreased glucokinase activity will help us to unravel the pathogenesis of diabetes and its complications.