The contribution of ATP-sensitive K ϩ channel (K ATP channel)-dependent and -independent signaling to the insulinotropic characteristics of imidazolines was explored using perifused mouse islets and -cells. Up to a concentration of 100 M efaroxan had no insulinotropic effect in the presence of a basal glucose concentration, but enhanced the effect of a stimulatory concentration of glucose or nonglucidic nutrients (ketoisocaproate plus glutamine). The secretion by a non-nutrient (40 mM KCl) was not enhanced. At 500 M, efaroxan stimulated insulin secretion when glucose was basal. Likewise, at 0.1 to 10 M RX871024 [2-(imidazolin-2-yl)-1-phenylindole] showed a purely enhancing effect, but at 100 M it elicited a strong KCl-like secretory response in the presence of basal glucose. At 0.1 and 1 M RX871024 did not significantly depolarize the -cell membrane. However, at a purely enhancing drug concentration (10 M RX871024 or 100 M efaroxan) K ATP channel activity was strongly reduced, the membrane was depolarized, and the cytosolic Ca 2ϩ concentration was elevated in the presence of basal glucose. Insulin secretion by sulfonylurea receptor (SUR)1 knockout (KO) islets, which have no functional K ATP channels, was not increased by efaroxan (100 or 500 M) or by 10 M RX871024 but was increased by 100 M RX871024. The imidazolines phentolamine and alinidine (100 M) were also ineffective on SUR1 KO islets. It is concluded that a significant K ATP channel block is compatible with a purely enhancing effect of the imidazolines on nutrient-induced insulin secretion. Only RX871024 has an additional, nondepolarizing effect, which at a high drug concentration is able to elicit a K ATP channel-independent secretion.The insulinotropic effect of the prototypical imidazoline phentolamine was originally believed to be due to an antagonism at ␣ 2 -adrenoceptors of the -cell (Robertson and Porte, 1973; Efendic et al., 1975). The observation that the insulinotropic effect of this compound was not shared by other antagonists at ␣ 2 -adrenoceptors but was shared by other compounds with imidazoline moieties (Ostenson et al., 1988;Schulz and Hasselblatt, 1989) led to the hypothesis that the insulinotropic effect was mediated by a -cell-specific subtype of the imidazoline receptor (Chan et al., 1994). In other tissues, at least two nonadrenergic imidazoline binding sites have been identified, and consequently the hypothetical -cell subtype was named I 3 receptor (Eglen et al., 1998;Morgan, 1999). In contrast to the I 1 and I 2 sites where binding occurs with nanomolar affinity, binding to I 3 sites requires micromolar concentrations of the imidazoline (Rustenbeck et al., 1997).The demonstration that phentolamine and other imidazolines block ATP-sensitive K ϩ channels (K ATP channels) in pancreatic -cells offered an explanation for their insulinotropic property (Plant and Henquin, 1990;Chan and Morgan, 1990). However, it remained unclear how the effect on the K ATP channel was related to the nonadrenergic imidazoline binding sites on...