Insufficient insulin production in the pancreas is one of the primary causes of adult-onset diabetes. Once the production mechanism of insulin in the body is understood, it will be easier for researchers to understand why some individuals does not produce enough insulin and thus develop diabetes.

Researchers at the University of Houston headed by Peter Vekilov and Dimitra Georgiou have studied the process by which insulin is produced and have focused on the creation of insulin crystals, the form in which insulin is stored in the pancreas before it is released in the bloodstream.

"It is possible that the insulin deficiency happens when the crystals don't form properly and then part of the insulin that is produced gets destroyed," Vekilov said. Proinsulin, a molecular precursor to insulin itself, is the reason for these crystals. After an insulin molecule is produced from proinsulin, it attaches to an insulin crystal only in special locations where other insulin molecules have formed right angles, called kinks.

Using atomic-force microscopy, they discovered a new mechanism by which insulin molecules attach themselves to crystals to form these kinks. They found that groups of insulin blocks create large protrusions, dubbed "mounds" by Vekilov and Georgiou. The very nature of these mounds results in the creation of multiple kinks -- far more, in fact, than other methods of kink formation.

Vekilov and Georgiou's discovery of the insulin crystal formation is only the third mechanism ever known and in turn plays a significant role in gaining a better understanding of diabetes.

Read more at UH.

Photo Credit: BBC