GPR40 (FFAR1) – Combined Gs and Gq signaling in vitro is associated with robust incretin secretagogue action ex vivo and in vivo

Maria Hauge Pedersen, Marie Aare Bentsen, Anna S Husted, Jeppe P Ekberg, Michael J Wright, Jerry Di Salvo, Adam B Weinglass, Maja Storm Engelstoft, Andreas N Madsen, Michael Lückmann, Michael W Miller, Maria E Trujillo, Thomas M Frimurer, Birgitte Holst, Andrew D Howard, Thue W Schwartz

124 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: GPR40 (FFAR1), a clinically proven anti-diabetes target, is a Gq-coupled receptor for long chain fatty acids (LCFA) stimulating insulin secretion directly and mediating a major part of the dietary triglyceride-induced secretion of the incretins GLP-1 and GIP. In phase-II studies the GPR40 agonist TAK-875 decreased blood glucose but surprisingly without stimulating incretins.

METHODS AND RESULTS: Here we find that GPR40 can signal through not only Gq and IP3 but also Gs and cAMP when stimulated with certain agonists such as AM-1638 and AM-5262 in contrast to the endogenous LCFA ligands and agonists such as TAK-875 and AM-837, which only signal through Gq. In competition binding against [3H]AM-1638 and [3H]L358 the Gq + Gs and the Gq-only agonists either competed for or showed positive cooperativity by increasing the binding of the two different radio-ligands, in opposite ways. Nevertheless, both the Gq-only and the Gq + Gs agonists all docked surprisingly well into the binding site for TAK-875 in the X-ray structure of GPR40. In murine intestinal primary cell-cultures the endogenous LCFAs and the Gq-only agonists stimulated GLP-1 secretion with rather poor efficacy as compared with the high efficacy Gq + Gs GPR40 agonists and a prototype GPR119 agonist. Similarly, in fasting both male and female mice the Gq + Gs agonists showed significantly higher efficacy than the Gq-only agonists in respect of increasing plasma GLP-1 and plasma GIP in a GPR40-dependent manner.

CONCLUSIONS: It is concluded that stimulation of GPR40 by endogenous LCFAs or by Gq-only synthetic agonists result in a rather limited incretin response, whereas Gq + Gs GPR40 agonists stimulate incretin secretion robustly.

Original languageEnglish
JournalMolecular Metabolism
Volume4
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)3-14
Number of pages12
ISSN2212-8778
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2015

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