The present study was addressed to determining the comparative responsiveness of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activity, in white adipose tissue and mammary gland, to a prolonged hyperinsulinemic stimulus, in pregnant and virgin rats. Pregnant rats at the 17th day of gestation and virgin animals were subjected, under conscious and unrestrained conditions, to a continuous infusion with either 50% glucose or double-distilled water (controls) (35 ml/day) for 72 h through a catheter in the jugular vein. The basal plasma-glucose levels were lower in pregnant than in virgin rats. After the glucose infusion plasma-glucose levels remained unchanged but plasma-insulin levels were much higher, and this effect was greater in pregnant than in virgin rats. Whereas LPL activity in white adipose tissue in the controls was lower in pregnant than in virgin rats, in rats receiving the glucose infusion it increased more in pregnant than in virgin rats. However, LPL activity in the mammary gland was already higher in control pregnant rats than in virgin controls and the glucose infusion caused a similar increase in both groups. Although there was a linear correlation when individual values, from all the studied rats, for LPL activity in both tissues were plotted against plasma insulin levels, the correlation coefficient was much higher for mammary-gland LPL activity than for adipose-tissue LPL activity. Plasma-triglyceride levels were higher in pregnant than in virgin rats. The glucose infusion did not modify this parameter, probably because of the changes in LPL activity in other tissues which are known to occur in the opposite direction to those observed in this study for adipose tissue and mammary gland. The present results support the notion that the insulin resistant condition which normally occurs during late gestation is responsible for the decreased LPL activity in adipose tissue, but that the mammary gland remains sensitive to insulin and so maternal hyperinsulinemia would contribute to the induction of LPL activity in this organ prior to parturition.