By Maggie Lu Yueyang:
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian scientists
have discovered how insulin is taken up by cells, potentially opening the way
for new drugs for diabetes patients that can be administered without injection.
The team, whose findings appeared in Nature,
solved the puzzle of how the hormone insulin binds to its receptor in cells - a
process necessary for cells to take up sugar from the blood and essential for
treating diabetes.
"All of that (previous) work has taken place
without a detailed picture of how insulin actually interacts with the cell and
tells that cell to take up glucose from the blood," leading scientist Mike
Lawrence, at Australia's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, told
Reuters.
"What we've done is providing that picture," he
said of the three-dimensional view of insulin bound to its receptor that
appeared in Nature on Thursday.
Researchers found that insulin engages its
receptor in a very unusual way, with both insulin and its receptor rearranging
themselves as they interact.
"A piece of insulin folds out and key pieces
within the receptor move to engage the insulin hormone," Lawrence said in a
statement. "You might call it a 'molecular handshake'."
Insulin controls the levels of glucose, or
sugar, in the blood, a mechanism that breaks down in people with diabetes.
Understanding the insulin binding process could
lead to new ways to deliver insulin other than by injection, or the development
of more effective and longer-lasting insulin products, Lawrence said.
"This structure is going to be a reference point
for all future design of insulin," he said.
"They (drug makers) are going to use that
information...for the next generation of insulin delivery devices, etc."
There are now 371 million people living with
diabetes globally, up from 366 million a year ago, according to the latest
report by the International Diabetes Federation.
(Reporting By Maggie Lu Yueyang, editing by
Elaine Lies)
