Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 16, Issue 14, 2010

When I was first confronted with the idea of in vivo imaging of beta cells, I was not sure whether this was meant seriously. For a nuclear medicine physician or a radiologist, imaging of tumors is part of the daily routine. Diabetes imaging seems far from the scope of clinically relevant imaging. If diabetes is diagnosed, it is usually done based on clinical findings such as pathological oral glucose tolerance. So, what would you need i Read More

Previously, studies of the endocrine pancreatic β-cell were mainly performed ex vivo by morphological means. This data supported the analyis of pathophysiological changes in the pancreatic islet during insults such as diabetes mellitus. Metabolic testing of the pancreatic islet by assaying hormone parameters such as plasma insulin or C-peptide combined with more or less sophisticated calculations allowed conclusions abo Read More

Persistent hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia (PHH) is caused by solitary benign insulinoma or hyperplasia of pancreatic beta cells. In infants, PHH is caused by functionally defective hyperplastic beta cells, which are either diffusely or focally distributed in the pancreas. In adults, insulinoma is the most common cause of PHH, but recently, an increasing number of beta-cell hyperplasias has been reported among adults. The cause o Read More

The changes in beta-cell mass (BCM) during the course of diabetes are not yet well characterized. A non-invasive method to measure the BCM in vivo would allow us to study the BCM during the onset and progression of the diseases caused by beta-cell dysfunction. PET and SPECT imaging are attractive approaches to determine the BCM because of their high sensitivity and the possibility to quantitatively analyze the images. Se Read More

In diabetic disease, blood glucose, HbA1c and insulin levels qualify as biomarkers reflecting endocrine pancreas function, but their shortfall in being truly useful predictors or surrogate endpoints of “abnormal processes or disease“ lies in that alteration in their levels are dependent on a variety comorbidities and occur too late in the disease process to be useful sentinels. Non invasive imaging of molecular targets within the beta Read More

The increasing global incidence of diabetes and advancements in clinical pancreatic islet transplantation for the treatment of Type I diabetes have renewed the interest in understanding the variations of β-cell mass and function relative not only to transplant outcome but also to the onset and progression of diabetes. A deeper comprehension of the molecular and cellular processes involved in pancreatic islet inflammation and Read More

Endocrine beta cells produce and release insulin in order to tightly regulate glucose homeostasis and prevent metabolic pathologies such as Diabetes Mellitus. Optical imaging has contributed greatly to our current understanding of beta cell structure and function. In vitro microscopy of beta cell lines has revealed the localization of molecular components in the cell and more recently their dynamic behavior. In cultured isl Read More

Systems biology is an emergent field that aims to understand biological systems at system-level. The increasing power of genome sequencing techniques and ranges of other molecular biology techniques is enabling the accumulation of in-depth knowledge of biological systems. This growing information, properly quantified, analysed and presented, will eventually allow the establishment of a system-based cartograph Read More

Nitric oxide (NO)-sensitive soluble guanylyl cyclase (sGC) is the receptor that catalyzes the formation of the intracellular messenger cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP). Binding of the physiological activator, NO, to the reduced heme moiety of sGC increases the conversion of guanosine triphosphate (GTP) to cyclic GMP (cGMP) and engages crucial effector systems such as protein kinases, phosphodiesterases, a Read More

The occurrence of autoantibodies is a common feature of autoimmune diseases. This review is intended to give an overview of the most important autoantibodies and their role in diagnosis, disease activity and prognosis in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematodes (SLE) and multiple sclerosis (MS). Whereas in RA and SLE these antibodies are meaningful for diagnosis and partially for the prognosis of the disea Read More

Due to number of problems related with oral, parenteral, rectal and other routes of drug administration, the interest of pharmaceutical scientists has increased towards exploring the possibilities of intranasal delivery of various drugs. Nasal drug delivery system is commonly known for the treatment of local ailments like cold, cough, rhinitis, etc. Efforts have been made to deliver various drugs, especially peptides and protei Read More