Endocrine Abstracts

Hyperglycaemia in type 2 diabetes is caused by insufficient insulin being secreted by the islet β-cell. In addition, the progressive nature of diabetes is due to the continuing decline of islet β-cell function with time. Currently we do not know what causes islet β-cell dysfunction in diabetes and we do not have effective drugs that specifically target the defect in insulin secretion. Clinical studies show that existing therapies have variable glucose-lowering e...

The critical contribution of deficient insulin secretion to the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes is beyond doubt. The normal beta-cell response to obesity-associated insulin resistance is hypersecretion of insulin that maintains blood glucose levels within the normal range. This is associated with both expansion of beta-cell mass and enhanced beta-cell function. Type 2 diabetes only develops in subjects that are unable to sustain the beta-cell compensatory response. This is ass...

Mitochondria are essential for the fuel-stimulated processes in beta-cells that control insulin secretion. Indeed, mutations in mitochondrial DNA underlie rare forms of maternally-inherited diabetes, where insulin secretion is impaired. Studies in human islets have identified several perturbations of mitochondrial function but whether they are causal or not has not been determined. Mining data from genome-wide association studies led us to the discovery of a variant of TFB...