Date of Award

4-2013

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Chemistry

First Advisor

Dr. Susan R. Stapleton

Second Advisor

Dr. David Huffman

Third Advisor

Dr. Gellert Mezei

Keywords

insulin resistance, mimetic, glucosamine, vanadate, hepatocytes

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

Insulin resistance and type II diabetes is a disease state characterized by a lack of sensitivity of insulin to provoke a proper response in insulin sensitive tissues. Currently, we utilize glucosamine to increase flux through the Hexosamine Biosynthetic Pathway (HBP) to induce an insulin resistance like state in primary rat hepatocytes. We tested the effectiveness of the insulin mimetic sodium orthovanadate to determine if it could elicit an insulin-like response under these conditions. Mixed results were obtained on the effectiveness of vanadate as an insulin mimetic in this insulin resistant model.

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