ABSTRACT
In considering the participation of the redox potential in secretion, the fundamental assumption will be made that the capacity of nutrient secretagogues to stimulate insulin release reflects their capacity to augment oxidative fluxes and increase O2 consumption in the pancreatic B-cell. There is an ample body of evidence indicating that nutrient secretagogues cause rapid and sustained changes in the redox potential of pancreatic islet cells. The most naive view concerning the mechanism by which nutrient secretagogues affect redox potential in islet cells would be to postulate that the increased rate of generation of reducing equivalents, resulting from the increase in nutrient oxidation, leads to a rise in the islet content of such equivalents. The metabolic changes result in turn in the stimulation of the ionic and secretory events usually observed in the process of nutrient-stimulated insulin release.
