The Antidiabetic Drug Metformin Stimulates Glycolytic Lactate Production in Cultured Primary Rat Astrocytes.

Abstract

Metformin is the most frequently used drug for the treatment of type 2 diabetes in humans. However, only little is known about effects of metformin on brain metabolism. To investigate potential metabolic consequences of an exposure of brain cells to metformin, we incubated rat astrocyte-rich primary cultures with this compound. Metformin in concentrations of up to 30mM did not acutely compromise the viability of astrocytes, but caused a time- and concentration-dependent increase in cellular glucose consumption and lactate production. For acute incubations in the hour range, the presence of 10mM metformin doubled the glycolytic flux, while already 1mM metformin doubled glycolytic flux during incubation for 24h. In addition to metformin, also other guanidino compounds increased astrocytic lactate production. After 4h of incubation, half-maximal stimulation of glycolysis was observed for metformin, guanidine and phenformin at concentrations of around 3mM, 3mM and 30µM, respectively. The acute stimulation of glycolytic lactate production by metformin was persistent after removal of extracellular metformin and was also observed, if glucose was absent from the incubation medium or replaced by other hexoses. The metformin-induced stimulation of glycolytic flux was not prevented by compound C, an inhibitor of AMP-dependent protein kinase, nor was it additive to the stimulation of glycolytic flux caused by respiratory chain inhibitors. These data demonstrate that the antidiabetic drug metformin has the potential to strongly activate glycolytic lactate production in brain astrocytes.