Proinsulin

Proinsulin levels might be elevated in patients with insulin-producing islet cell tumors (= insulinomas). These patients suffer from hypoglycemic attacks due to inappropriate secretion of insulin by the tumors. The biochemical diagnosis rests primarily on demonstrating nonsuppressed insulin levels in the presence of hypoglycemia (blood glucose <45 mg/dL). The diagnosis can be difficult, as tumors might be small or secrete insulin only episodically. Insulin injections or hypoglycemic drugs can also mimic insulinoma. Evaluation of these patients frequently requires a prolonged fast (72 hours) as well as supplementary tests in addition to insulin and glucose measurements, including a sulfonylurea screen and measurement of C-peptide, proinsulin, and beta-hydroxybutyrate. The inappropriate oversecretion of insulin by insulinomas causes the release of an increased numbers of secretory granules with incompletely processed insulin, resulting in elevated serum/plasma proinsulin concentrations. This oversecretion of proinsulin in insulinomas is accentuated during fasting, when proinsulin normally does not account for more than 5% of the insulin concentrations.

Proinsulin is strikingly elevated in PC1/3 deficiency. These patients have defects in the processing of multiple peptide hormones and suffer from diabetes, adrenal insufficiency, infertility, and obesity. Affected individuals typically have red hair regardless of racial background. Variants in the proinsulin molecule have been reported that affect PC cleavage efficiency or subsequent proinsulin metabolism. These variants can also lead to markedly elevated proinsulin levels but are usually not accompanied by diabetes or any other hormonal abnormalities.

Normal individuals will have proinsulin concentrations below the upper limit of the normal fasting reference range (22 pmol/L) when hypoglycemic (blood glucose <60 mg/dL). Conversely, most (>80%) insulinoma patients will have proinsulin concentrations above the upper limit of the reference range. The sensitivity and specificity for a diagnosis of insulinoma during hypoglycemia are approximately 75% and near 100%, respectively, at the 22 pmol/L cutoff. 

Patients with PC1/3 deficiency have low, or sometimes undetectable, insulin levels and substantially elevated proinsulin levels, exceeding the upper limit of the reference range substantially in the fasting state and rising even higher after food intake. Many other hormonal abnormalities are also present, including cortisol deficiency (because of lack of processing of pro-opiomelanocortin to adrenocorticotropic hormone and other peptides), infertility, and, often, obesity.