Current Protein and Peptide Science - Volume 10, Issue 1, 2009

Diabetes mellitus remains a hot research topic. More than 10,000 articles related to it have been published in the last twelve months (PubMed). In the U.S., 1.5 million new cases were diagnosed in 2005 and 6.2% of Americans are diabetic. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 197 million people worldwide have impaired glucose tolerance, most commonly attributed to obesity and metabolic syndr Read More

Ghrelin is a gut-brain peptide that has somatotropic, food intake increasing and adipogenic effects. Ghrelin is involved in modulating insulin and glucose metabolism in rodents according to recent studies. In humans acylated ghrelin reduces insulin sensitivity while unacylated ghrelin has opposite effects. In general, ghrelin seems to have diabetogenic effects. Obese, in particular abdominally obese, subjects have low ghrel Read More

Emerging evidence suggests that amino acids may be potentially important in the prevention of diabetes and diabetes-associated complications. The pathways involved in the pathogenesis of diabetic complications include increased polyol pathway flux, increased advanced glycation end products formation, activation of protein kinase C and oxidative and carbonyl stress. This review will discuss the modulatory effects of a Read More

Diabetes and the related metabolic syndrome are multi system disorders that result from improper interactions between various cell types. Even though the underlying mechanism remains to be fully understood, it is most likely that both the long and the short distance range cell interactions, which normally ensure the physiologic functioning of the pancreas, and its relationships with the insulin-targeted organs, are altered. Thi Read More

PDZ domains are versatile protein interaction modules with the ability to dimerize and to recognize internal and carboxy-terminal peptide motifs. Their function in mediating the formation of multi-molecular signaling complexes is best understood at neuronal and epithelial membranes. In a screen for interactors that regulate transcription factor function in pancreatic beta cells, we isolated two PDZ-containing proteins Bridge Read More

Efforts to cure diabetes are now focused on restoring a physiologically-regulated population of insulinproducing cells to the patient. A number of animal models of β cell regeneration have been employed to study the mechanisms of the process. Islet neogenesis, the regeneration of pancreatic islets from pancreatic stem cells, is arguably the least fraught with barriers to widespread use as a therapy for diabetes. The Read More

This review article focuses on the therapeutic potential of the incretin hormones, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), in treating type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). T2DM is characterized by insulin resistance, impaired glucose-induced insulin secretion and inappropriately regulated glucagon secretion which in combination eventually result in hyperglycemia and in the lo Read More

Type 2 diabetes is closely related to abdominal obesity and is generally associated with other cardiometabolic risk factors, resulting in a high incidence of cardiovascular complications. Several animal and human observations suggest that the endocannabinoid (EC) system is overactivated in presence of abdominal obesity and/or diabetes, and contributes to disturbances of energy balance and metabolism. Not only it regula Read More

Angiotensin II (Ang II) is well-known as a systemic vasoconstrictor but recently a novel role for the peptide in endocrine function has been suggested and it has been linked to the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes mellitus. According to several large-scale clinical studies, blocking Ang II prevented the onset of type 2 diabetes in potential patients. Type 2 diabetes is a complicated disease that is primarily characterized by i Read More

The heat shock proteins (HSPs), originally identified as heat-inducible gene products, are a highly conserved family of proteins that respond to a wide variety of stress. Although HSPs are among the most abundant intracellular proteins, they are expressed at low levels under normal physiological conditions, and show marked induction in response to various stressors. HSPs function primarily as molecular chaperones, Read More

Resistin is a potential link between obesity and insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes. In rodents, resistin is primarily expressed in and secreted from mature adipocytes, with some expression in pancreatic islets and portions of the pituitary and hypothalamus. Its secretion can be up-regulated by several factors, including insulin and glucose. The exposure of rodents, or their cells, to resistin results in decreased response to insulin. Read More