New position for microtubules in diabetes | VUMC Reporter

by Invoice Snyder

The failure of pancreatic beta cells to launch acceptable quantities of insulin in response to rising blood glucose ranges is a trademark of sort 2 diabetes.

Through the previous decade researchers have proven that microtubules — a part of the cell’s cytoskeleton — play an essential position in regulating the supply of insulin granules to the cell membrane for secretion. Now Kathryn Trogden, PhD, and colleagues report that microtubules are also essential for the biogenesis of the granules themselves.

Microtubules, it seems, are extremely regulated by glucose appearing by way of the ever-present messaging molecule cyclic AMP and its effector protein EPAC2. The glucose sign causes microtubules to disassemble and reassemble on the Golgi equipment contained in the cell, the place insulin granules are fashioned.

Inhibiting EPAC2 blocked formation of recent Golgi-derived microtubules and in the end resulted in depletion of insulin granules within the beta cell, the researchers reported this month within the journal Present Biology.

Their findings present additional proof that regulating microtubule dynamics could also be a possible new method to treating diabetes.

This analysis was supported by the Nationwide Institutes of Well being (grants DK007061, DK117529, GM127098, DK065949, DK106228).