How insulin-producing cells develop: new finding could help fight against diabetes

The research reveals that glucose plays a key role in enabling healthy beta cells, which secrete insulin, to develop in the pancreas of an embryo. Glucose prompts a gene called Neurogenin3 to switch on another gene, known as NeuroD, which is crucial for the normal development of beta cells. If glucose levels are low this gene is not switched on.

Insulin is the principal hormone that regulates the uptake of glucose and if the beta cells are unable to produce sufficient insulin, this can cause diabetes.

The scientists, from Imperial College London and an INSERM Unit at Necker Hospital, Paris, hope that understanding how to switch on the gene that produces beta cells could eventually enable researchers to create these cells from stem cells. They could then transplant beta cells into patients with type 1 diabetes. In this type of diabetes the immune system attacks patients' beta cells and at the moment few patients with the condition are able to have beta cell transplants, because the cells have to be taken from deceased donors.

The researchers also hope that scientists will be able to develop drug therapies that enhance the action of glucose and hence encourage the growth of healthy beta cells.

Professor Guy Rutter, from the Division of Medicine at Imperial College and one of the authors of the paper, said: “We hope that by demonstrating that an 'extrinsic' factor like glucose can regulate the way in which insulin secreting cells develop we may eventually be able to reverse defects in the growth of these cells in patients with diabetes. Research like ours is opening up whole new sets of targets for drug treatments.”

The researchers reached their conclusions after conducting research on tissues cultured from the primordial pancreas of very young rat embryos. Using an in vitro system, rather than looking at cells in vivo, enables researchers to gain a greater understanding of when and how different genes are being switched on.

Media Contact

Laura Gallagher alfa

More Information:

http://www.imperial.ac.uk

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Acetylation: a Time-Keeper of glucocorticoid Sensitivity

Understanding the regulatory mechanism paves the way to enhance the effectiveness of anti-inflammatory therapies and to develop strategies to counteract the negative effects of stress- and age-related cortisol excess. The…

Mini satellite wants to take quantum communication to space

Researchers from Jena, Würzburg and Potsdam have successfully developed a design for the smallest system of its kind so far to take highly secure quantum communication to space: Led by…

Results for control of pollutants in water

Brazilian scientists tested a simple and sustainable method for monitoring and degrading a mixture of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, compounds present in fossil fuels and industrial waste. An article published in the journal Catalysis…

Partners & Sponsors