Glucose exerts powerful effects on hepatocyte gene transcription by mechanisms that are incompletely understood. c-Myc regulates hepatic glucose metabolism by increasing glycolytic enzyme gene transcription while concomitantly decreasing gluconeogenic and ketogenic enzyme gene expression. However, the molecular mechanisms by which c-Myc exerts these effects is not known. In this study, the glucose-mediated induction of L-type pyruvate kinase and glucose-6-phosphatase mRNA levels was diminished by maneuvers involving recombinant adenoviral vectors that interfere with (i) c-Myc protein levels by antisense expression or (ii) c-Myc function through a dominant-negative Max protein. These results were obtained using both HL1C rat hepatoma cells and primary rat hepatocytes. Furthermore, a decrease in c-Myc abundance reduced glucose production in HL1C cells, presumably by decreasing glucose-6-phosphatase activity. The repression of hormone-activated phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase gene transcription by glucose was not affected by a reduction in c-Myc levels. The basal mRNA levels for Lpyruvate kinase and glucose-6-phosphatase were not altered to any significant degree by adenoviral treatment. Furthermore, adenoviral overexpression of the c-Myc protein induced glucose-6-phosphatase mRNA in the absence of glucose stimulation. We conclude that multiple mechanisms exist to communicate the glucose-derived signal and that c-Myc has a key role in the hepatic glucose signaling pathway.Insulin and glucose act jointly to influence glucose homeostasis by altering hepatic gene expression patterns. Insulin increases glucokinase (GK) 1 gene transcription and protein levels in hepatocytes (1). The phosphorylation of glucose by GK leads to increased glucose flux and metabolism, generating signaling metabolites that modify the gene expression profile of the liver (2). For example, the L-pyruvate kinase (L-PK) and glucose-6-phosphatase (Glc-6-Pase) genes (encoding key glycolytic and gluconeogenic enzymes, respectively) are stimulated by increases in hepatic glucose metabolism (3-5). Conversely, glucose metabolism can also negatively regulate gene transcription, exemplified by the repression of hormone-activated phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase (PEPCK) gene promoter activity (6, 7). Although glucose metabolism modulates the gene expression patterns of key glycolytic and gluconeogenic enzymes, the signaling mechanisms and coordinating transcription factors involved are not fully characterized.One transcription factor that is a candidate for establishing hepatic glucose-dependent gene expression patterns is the basic, helix-loop-helix leucine-zipper (bHLH-LZ) transcription factor c-Myc (8, 9). The Myc family of proteins (e.g. c-, N-, L-Myc, USF, Max, Mad, etc.) participates in control of proliferation, growth, differentiation, apoptosis, and metabolism (10, 11). c-Myc binds DNA by interacting with the E box sequence CACGTG (and other related non-canonical sites) as a heterodimer with Max, another bHLH-LZ protein. The Myc/Max heterodimer ...