Effect of glucagon antibodies on plasma glucose, insulin and somatostatin in the fasting and fed rat.

A potent high-titre glucagon antibody pool was used to induce a state of acute glucagon deficiency in order to investigate the importance of glucagon in maintaining euglycaemia in the fed and fasted anaesthetised rat. Binding characteristics of the antiserum and evidence of its neutralisation of the biological effects of exogenous glucagon are described. The amount of antibody administered was capable of neutralising up to 12 times the total content of glucagon (approximately 1 nmol) in the rat pancreas. The hyperglycaemic response to 1.43 nmol exogenous glucagon was significantly inhibited in the rat by glucagon antibodies given intravenously or intraperitoneally (p less than 0.001). However, no changes in plasma glucose occurred in rats fasted 16 h (4.35 +/- 0.1 mmol/l or 24 h (4.0 +/- 0.05 mmol/l) after antibody administration. The same dose of glucagon antibodies produced no change in plasma glucose (6.1 +/- 0.2 mmol/l), immunoreactive insulin (1.85 +/- 0.05 microgram/l) or immunoreactive somatostatin (110 +/- 30 ng/l) in rats after antibody administration. Antibody excess, equivalent to a binding capacity for glucagon of 40 nmol/l in the plasma of recipient animals, was demonstrable at all times after passive immunisation. The absence of any affect on glucose concentrations following immunoneutralisation of glucagon suggests that glucagon secretion may not be a major factor in the maintenance of euglycaemia in the rat.