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2010 ; 1
(6
): 537-51
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English Wikipedia
Insulin: a small protein with a long journey
#MMPMID21204007
Hua Q
Protein Cell
2010[Jun]; 1
(6
): 537-51
PMID21204007
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Insulin is a hormone that is essential for regulating energy storage and glucose
metabolism in the body. Insulin in liver, muscle, and fat tissues stimulates the
cell to take up glucose from blood and store it as glycogen in liver and muscle.
Failure of insulin control causes diabetes mellitus (DM). Insulin is the unique
medicine to treat some forms of DM. The population of diabetics has dramatically
increased over the past two decades, due to high absorption of carbohydrates (or
fats and proteins), lack of physical exercise, and development of new diagnostic
techniques. At present, the two largest developing countries (India and China)
and the largest developed country (United States) represent the top three
countries in terms of diabetic population. Insulin is a small protein, but
contains almost all structural features typical of proteins: ?-helix, ?-sheet,
?-turn, high order assembly, allosteric TŪR-transition, and conformational
changes in amyloidal fibrillation. More than ten years' efforts on studying
insulin disulfide intermediates by NMR have enabled us to decipher the whole
picture of insulin folding coupled to disulfide pairing, especially at the
initial stage that forms the nascent peptide. Two structural switches are also
known to regulate insulin binding to receptors and progress has been made to
identify the residues involved in binding. However, resolving the complex
structure of insulin and its receptor remains a challenge in insulin research.
Nevertheless, the accumulated knowledge of insulin structure has allowed us to
specifically design a new ultra-stable and active single-chain insulin analog
(SCI-57), and provides a novel way to design super-stable, fast-acting and
cheaper insulin formulations for DM patients. Continuing this long journey of
insulin study will benefit basic research in proteins and in pharmaceutical
therapy.
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