Insulin stimulates integrin-linked kinase in UMR-106 cells: potential role of heparan sulfate on syndecan-1

Abstract

Insulin plays a wide variety of physiological actions in osteoblast cells such as differentiation and gene expression. Integrins are transmembrane heterodimeric proteins consisting of α and β subunits which transduce signals from extracellular matrix into the cell. The integrin-mediated signals regulate gene expression, differentiation and survival of osteoblast. In the present study, we explored to determine if insulin could regulate integrin-linked kinase (ILK) signaling in osteoblast like UMR-106 cells. Insulin rapidly stimulated ILK activity in a time-dependent manner with maximal activity observed at 60 min. The insulin’s ability to stimulate ILK was almost completely abolished when the cells were pre-incubated with heparinase III (HepIII), suggesting the heparan sulfates attached to syndecan-1 play an important role in the activation of ILK in response to insulin. Interestingly, insulin also activated Akt activity by phosphorylation, whereas pre-treatment of HepIII failed to interfere Akt activation by insulin. In contrast, HepIII pre-treatment inhibited alkaline phosphatase stimulation and collagen synthesis in response to insulin. These results strongly suggest that heparan sulfates on the syndecan-1 and/or shedding of syndecan-1 play a significant role in regulating ILK by insulin, and thereby regulating alkaline phosphatase and collagen synthesis in osteoblast cells.

• Heparinase III
• insulin
• ILK
• osteoblasts
• syndecan-1

Declaration of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. This study was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2013R1A1A2006613).