All of our work to date has focussed on rainbow trout muscle for several
reasons; the trout is a well known model system and it is easy
to acquire and hold in the laboratory. However, it may not be
representative of all fish. Trout are carnivores, so their main
food is protein. This may go a long way to explaining why the
muscle of these fish use glucose poorly. In fact, it appears that
the muscle from adult fish is insulin-insensitive; in that our
preliminary datat indicate that piscine insulin does not promote
glycogen synthesis nor glucose uptake in adult trout muscle. This
apparent insulin/glucose resistance may not be the case in herbivorous
fish where carbohydrate is a major nutrient. Thus, we plan to
expand our studies to other herbivorous and omnivorous species.