D-glucose was previously reported to cause a concentration-related decrease in the 36Cl- content of prelabeled islets prepared from ob/ob mice, a current animal model of inherited obesity. From these findings, it was inferred that the hexose stimulates Cl- efflux from islet cells and that such an increase in Cl- permeability may partly mediate glucose-induced depolarization of insulin-producing cells. The aim of the present study was to investigate the possible extension of these findings to islets prepared from normal rats by measuring the changes evoked by increasing concentrations of D-glucose in 36Cl- outflow itself from prelabeled isolated islets. After 60 min preincubation at 37 degrees C in the presence of 3 mM D-glucose and 36Cl- (75 microCi/mL), the islets were incubated for 8-10 min at 37 degrees C in the presence of increasing concentrations of the hexose (3-20 mM). The changes in 36Cl- outflow during incubation indicated that D-glucose, in excess of a threshold concentration close to 5 mM, indeed increases effluent radioactivity from the prelabeled islets. It is proposed, therefore, that a gating of volume-sensitive anion channels in glucose-stimulated insulin-producing islet cells participates in the depolarization of the plasma membrane recorded in the range of insulinotropic concentrations of the hexose.