Glucose triggers insulin release from pancreatic beta-cells through a newly discovered molecular pathway that bypasses the usual potassium channel mechanism. The key player is a signalling molecule called NAADP, which forms inside beta-cells when glucose levels rise and then releases calcium from internal stores to drive insulin secretion. The researchers have identified the target for NAADP as the two-pore channel (TPC) proteins. This work addresses a critical gap: the standard model of insulin release—potassium channels closing, electrical changes, calcium influx—cannot fully explain how glucose triggers insulin secretion. Defects in this mechanism underlie type 2 diabetes, where cells fail to take up glucose and blood sugar stays chronically high. The team will map how NAADP production is controlled in beta-cells and how it interacts with TPCs and other signalling proteins to stimulate insulin release. If successful, this fundamental science could reveal new molecular components that become impaired in diabetes, offering fresh targets for drug development. The work is curiosity-driven, but similar discoveries about insulin signalling have previously led directly to classes of anti-diabetic drugs.
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Glucose is an important fuel for the cells of our bodies, allowing them to carry out their many functions. After a meal, glucose passes from our gut into the blood where it is carried to the pancreas. A set of specialized cells called pancreatic beta-cells respond to the increase of glucose levels in the blood by releasing the hormone insulin. Insulin is then carried by the blood to the organs of the body where it binds to a specific protein or receptor on the surface of cells and triggers a cascade of chemical events inside each cell to promote glucose transport into the cell for use as a fuel or for storage. How glucose stimulates insulin release is a key question, since a defect in this mechanism is responsible for type 2 diabetes. Diabetes is associated with decreased glucose uptake into cells, and chronically high levels of glucose in the blood, leading to multiple pathological events. One set of key proteins in the membranes surrounding beta-cells are called potassium channels. These close in response to uptake and metabolism of glucose, and also after treatment with some anti-diabetic drugs, leading to electrical changes resulting in an increase of calcium ions inside the beta-cell. Calcium ions act as a signal to promote release of insulin from storage granules from inside the cells into the blood. However, there is now evidence that glucose may also trigger insulin release by mechanisms independent of these potassium channels. Our preliminary work has shown that an important additional mechanism may involve a molecule called NAADP, which is generated inside the beta-cell in response to raised glucose levels and then releases calcium from internal stores within the cell to promote insulin release. Recently we made a major step forward by identifying the target receptor for NAADP in the cell as being the two-pore channel (TPC) proteins. We propose to study how production of NAADP is controlled in beta-cells and discover the precise way in which it acts upon the TPCs and other connected signalling proteins to stimulate release of insulin. Our work should thus uncover new molecular components involved in insulin release which may be impaired in diabetes and may represent new targets for drugs in the treatment of this disease.
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