Glucose disposal into skeletal muscle is critical for the maintenance of glucose homoeostasis, and insulin- and exercise-stimulated glucose uptake into muscle are the most physiologically relevant stimuli in humans and rodents. It is now well-established that the proximal intracellular signalling molecules regulating exercise-stimulated glucose uptake in skeletal muscle are distinct from that of insulin [
14], but the signalling systems converge at AS160 and TBC1D1. AS160 phosphorylation has been investigated in contracting skeletal muscle (e.g. [
15,
35,
36]), and we have studied the role of AS160 in glucose uptake [
32,
37]. However, much less is known about the regulation and function of TBC1D1.
While AS160 is ubiquitously expressed, the expression of TBC1D1 is highest in skeletal muscle, with very limited expression (e.g. adipocytes) or no expression (e.g. heart) in other tissues throughout the body [
21]. This suggests that TBC1D1 has a more specialized function, unique to the properties of skeletal muscle. Therefore we hypothesized that TBC1D1 may have a primary function of mediating signalling inputs derived from muscle contraction. The results of the present study show that muscle contraction increases the phosphorylation of TBC1D1 on multiple sites, including Ser
231, Ser
660, and to a lesser extent Ser
700. On the basis of our initial MS work [
21] and the AMPK consensus sequence [
25], these three amino acid residues are predicted AMPK phosphorylation sites, which is consistent with our finding that AICAR strongly increased phosphorylation of all three sites. The greater AICAR response compared with the effects of muscle contraction is likely to be due to the more potent effects of AICAR to increase AMPK phosphorylation and activity [
15,
38]. The lower degree of contraction- and AICAR-stimulated Ser
700 phosphorylation compared with Ser
231 and Ser
660 could be due to a number of factors, including a higher level of Ser
700 phosphorylation in the basal state. The finding that insulin did not increase phosphorylation of Ser
231, Ser
660 and Ser
700 is also consistent with AMPK regulation, since insulin does not increase AMPK activity [
38]. Thus while both insulin and contraction signalling converge at TBC1D1, the two stimuli exert a distinct pattern of phosphorylation on this Rab-GAP.
An important question is to determine the upstream kinase or kinases that mediate the effects of muscle contraction on TBC1D1 phosphorylation. Muscle contraction and exercise activate numerous signalling responses in skeletal muscle including AMPK [
39]. The basal level of phosphorylation of TBC1D1 on Ser
231, Ser
660 and Ser
700 was significantly reduced in muscles from AMPKα2i TG mice, demonstrating that even low levels of AMPK activity, which are found in the unstimulated or resting condition, are necessary to maintain TBC1D1 phosphorylation in the muscle. Contraction-stimulated TBC1D1 phosphorylation was significantly reduced in the AMPKα2i TG mice, but, interestingly, contraction still resulted in a small increase in phosphorylation of all three sites. Therefore TBC1D1 phosphorylation on Ser
231, Ser
660 and Ser
700 is not solely dependent on AMPK, implicating regulation by additional upstream kinases. One possibility is Akt2, since under some conditions muscle contraction increases Akt phosphorylation and activity [
15,
33,
35]. However, given that we found both basal and contraction-stimulated TBC1D1 phosphorylation of Ser
231, Ser
660 and Ser
700 to be normal in the muscle of the Akt2 KO mice, it is unlikely that Akt2 plays a regulatory role. In addition to Akt, exercise and muscle contraction increase the activity of multiple kinases in skeletal muscle including ERK1/2 (extracellular-signal-regulated kinase 1/2), JNK (c-Jun N-terminal kinase), p38 MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase), the AMPK-related kinase SNARK (sucrose-non-fermenting protein kinase) and CaMKII (Ca
2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II) [
39,
40]. Given that AMPKα2-inactive TG mice and AMPKα2 KO mice have normal or near normal increases in contraction-stimulated glucose uptake [
28,
41,
42], both
in vitro and
in vivo, the regulation of TBC1D1 phosphorylation by these other kinases may be critical in glucose uptake regulation. Interestingly, compound C has recently been reported to decrease contraction-stimulated TBC1D1 PAS phosphorylation and glucose uptake in rat epitrochlearis muscle [
43]. Whether this decrease in PAS phosphorylation was associated with decreases in AMPK activity or muscle contractility was not determined, making it difficult to determine the exact mechanism of the inhibitor compound. Nevertheless, this work is another example where TBC1D1 phosphorylation status is associated with glucose uptake. In future studies it will be important to determine whether these contraction-stimulated proteins or other proteins can behave as TBC1D1 kinases, and whether these kinases could function as redundant signals regulating glucose transport in the absence of AMPK.
Consistent with the fact that TBC1D1 Thr
590 is a full Akt consensus motif, we found that insulin increased TBC1D1 Thr
590 phosphorylation in skeletal muscle, and this effect of insulin was dependent on Akt2. TBC1D1 Thr
590 has also been suggested to be a partial AMPK consensus motif [
26], but, in our present study, contraction and AICAR had no effect on Thr
590 phosphorylation. In contrast, it has been reported that contraction increased TBC1D1 Thr
590 phosphorylation, and that this increase was abolished in AMPKα2 kinase-dead mice [
24]. The reason for this discrepancy is not obvious, but could be due to differences in stimulation protocols or differences in antibody specificity. The function of Thr
590 is not known, but there are several lines of evidence to suggest that it may not function in the regulation of glucose uptake in adult skeletal muscle. While it is established that insulin increases TBC1D1 Thr
590 phosphorylation in muscle (the present study and [
24]), phosphorylation of this site has no effect on 14-3-3 binding, and this binding is thought to be essential for the regulation of glucose uptake [
24]. Furthermore, we found that mutation of Thr
590 to alanine, along with three other conserved TBC1D1 phosphorylation sites, had no effect on insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in muscle [
27]. In addition, in the present study the contraction protocol used stimulated glucose uptake without concomitant phosphorylation of Thr
590, providing evidence that this site is also not essential for contraction-stimulated glucose uptake. It is also interesting that TBC1D1 Thr
590 phosphorylation does fully correlate with contraction- and AICAR-stimulated PAS phosphorylation. It is possible that a site other than TBC1D1 Thr
590, such as Ser
501, which is an established Akt site [
26], may be more critical in regulating insulin-stimulated glucose uptake in skeletal muscle.
Our previous study has shown that mutation of four highly conserved TBC1D1 phosphorylation sites that represent both Akt or AMPK consensus motifs (Ser
231, Thr
499, Thr
590 and Ser
621) impaired contraction-stimulated glucose uptake, but had no effect on insulin-stimulated glucose uptake. However, the decrease in contraction-stimulated glucose uptake was 22%, suggesting that other sites on TBC1D1 may also function in contraction-regulated glucose uptake. In the present study we mutated the phosphorylation sites that we had shown were responsive to contraction (Ser
231, Ser
660 and Ser
700), as well as Thr
499, an AMPK consensus site [
21]. In mutating all four of these sites simultaneously, we found an even greater decrease in contraction-stimulated glucose transport (42%) compared with our previous study (22%) [
27]. Interestingly, we found that expression of single point mutants had no effect on contraction-stimulated glucose uptake in skeletal muscle. Taken together, these data raise the possibility that multiple phosphorylation sites may work co-operatively to control TBC1D1 Rab-GAP activity and, subsequently, glucose uptake.
In conclusion, signals emanating from muscle contraction and insulin both phosphorylate TBC1D1, but the pattern of phosphorylation is distinct for the two stimuli. AMPKα2 and Akt2 phosphorylate TBC1D1, but there must be additional upstream kinases that phosphorylate TBC1D1 in skeletal muscle. We found that contraction-stimulated TBC1D1 phosphorylation was not affected by diet-induced insulin resistance, consistent with most of the literature showing that high-fat-fed animals have normal increases in exercise- or contraction-stimulated glucose uptake [
44,
45]. Our data establish TBC1D1 as an important regulator of contraction-stimulated glucose uptake in skeletal muscle. Given that TBC1D1 expression is highly specific to skeletal muscle, pharmacological inhibition of TBC1D1 Rab-GAP activity may be a desirable means to enhance glucose uptake and lower blood glucose concentrations, without off-target effects in other tissues.