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

Key aspect of how embryos create the cells which secrete insulin is revealed in new study <em>- News Release</em>

Imperial College London News Release

For immediate release
Thursday 17 May 2007

A key aspect of how embryos create the cells which secrete insulin is revealed in a new study published tomorrow (18 May) in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The researchers hope that their findings will enable the development of new therapies for diabetes, a condition caused by insufficient levels of insulin.

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.

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Imperial College London
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Notes to editors:

1. "Glucose is necessary for embryonic pancreatic endocrine cell differentiation" Journal of Biological Chemistry, Vol. 282, Issue 20, 15228-15237, 18 May 2007 - available online: http://www.jbc.org/cgi/doi/10.1074/jbc.M610986200

18 May 2007 Ghislaine Guillemain(1), Gaëlle Filhoulaud(1), Gabriela Da Silva-Xavier(2), Guy A. Rutter(2), and Raphaël Scharfmann(1)

(1)University Paris-Descartes, Faculty of Medicine, INSERM, Necker Hospital, Paris, France and the (2)Department of Cell Biology, Division of Medicine, Imperial College London

2. About Imperial College London

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Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and management and delivers practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.

With 62 Fellows of the Royal Society among our current academic staff and distinguished past members of the College including 14 Nobel Laureates and two Fields Medallists, Imperial's contribution to society has been immense. Inventions and innovations include the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of our research for the benefit of all continues today with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to tackle climate change and mathematical modelling to predict and control the spread of infectious diseases.

The College's 100 years of living science will be celebrated throughout 2007 with a range of events to mark the Centenary of the signing of Imperial's founding charter on 8 July 1907. Website: www.imperial.ac.uk