Multiple promoter and enhancer differences likely contribute to augmented G6PC2 expression in human versus mouse pancreatic islet alpha cells

G6PC2 encodes a glucose-6-phosphatase catalytic subunit that opposes the action of glucokinase in pancreatic islets, thereby modulating the sensitivity of insulin and glucagon secretion to glucose. In mice, G6pc2 is expressed at ~20-fold higher levels in β-cells than in α-cells, whereas in humans G6PC2 is expressed at only ~5-fold higher levels in β-cells. We therefore hypothesize that G6PC2 likely influences glucagon secretion to a greater degree in humans. With a view to generating a humanized mouse that recapitulates augmented G6PC2 expression levels in α-cells, we sought to identify the genomic regions that confer differential mouse G6pc2 expression in α-cells versus β-cells as well as the evolutionary changes that have altered this ratio in humans. Studies in islet-derived cell lines suggest that the elevated G6pc2 expression in mouse β-cells versus α-cells is mainly due to a difference in the relative activity of the proximal G6pc2 promoter in these cell types. Similarly, the smaller difference in G6PC2 expression between α-cells and β-cells in humans is potentially explained by a change in relative proximal G6PC2 promoter activity. However, we show that both glucocorticoid levels and multiple differences in the relative activity of eight transcriptional enhancers between mice and humans likely contribute to differential G6PC2 expression. Finally, we show that a mouse-specific non-coding RNA, Gm13613, whose expression is controlled by G6pc2 enhancer I, does not regulate G6pc2 expression, indicating that altered expression of Gm13613 in a humanized mouse that contains both the human promoter and enhancers should not affect G6PC2 function.