Action of insulin on liver carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase II (glutamine-hydrolyzing) activity

Carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase II (glutamine-hydrolyzing) (EC 6.3.5.5) (synthetase II), is the first and rate-limiting enzyme in the de novo UMP biosynthetic pathway. The present investigation showed that insulin has a regulatory action on hepatic synthetase II activity. When diabetes was induced with injection of different doses of alloxan the plasma insulin concentrations decreased in a dose-dependent fashion to 72, 38, 31 and 28% and concurrently the liver synthetase II activity decreased to 75, 43, 29 and 22% of the normal values. In diabetic rats dose response studies showed that with insulin injections of 4, 6, 8 or 10 U/day for 48 h the hepatic synthetase II activity increased to 81, 95, 99 and 103% of the control liver values. In the diabetic rats the insulin-induced rise in liver synthetase II activity was prevented by treatment of the rats with actinomycin.