Nutritional recovery from a low-protein diet during pregnancy does not restore the kinetics of insulin secretion and Ca or alterations in the cAMP/PKA and PLC/PKC pathways in islets from adult rats.

We investigated the insulin release induced by glucose, the Ca oscillatory pattern, and the cyclic AMP (cAMP)/protein kinase A (PKA) and phospholipase C (PLC)/protein kinase C (PKC) pathways in islets from adult rats that were reared under diets with 17% protein (C) or 6% protein (LP) during gestation, suckling, and after weaning and in rats receiving diets with 6% protein during gestation and 17% protein after birth (R). First-phase glucose-induced insulin secretion was reduced in LP and R islets, and the second phase was partially restored in the R group. Glucose stimulation did not modify intracellular Ca concentration, but it reduced the Ca oscillatory frequency in the R group compared with the C group.