Snail poison is a 'safer and more effective' treatment for diabetes
Scientists from the University of Utah have announced that they are developing the world's smallest version of the insulin hormone from predatory marine snail poison, which can be used to produce drugs to treat 'safer and more effective' diabetes.
The research team says the new innovation mimics the high-speed properties of sea snail poison to lower blood sugar levels, without the long-term side effects of other types of diabetes treatment.
Improving the lives of diabetics
According to the British Daily Mail, according to the Nature Structural and Molecular Biology journal, the results of the study, conducted in mice to date, suggest that the development of insulin treatments that contribute positively and effectively to improving the lives of diabetics can be stimulated.
Danny Hong-Chichu, a member of the research team, says we now have the ability to create a hybrid version of insulin that is suitable for human treatment, and also seems to have many positive features such as insulin extracted from the conical snail.
Snail hunting mechanism for its prey
Creeping conical snails slide across coral reefs, and live to catch their prey by secreting poison in the surrounding waters. This poison causes the prey to temporary paralysis and the snail then emerges from its crust (conical cochlear) and feeds on the prey.
The poison, specifically secreted by the Conus geographus snail strain, contains a unique form of insulin, which causes blood glucose levels to drop in nearby fish, temporarily dislocated.
Zhu and his colleagues discovered that the poisonous insulin from the snail has similar characteristics to human insulin and their experiments have shown that it works faster than other types of insulin.
Fast-acting
Helena Safavi, an assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen and a member of the research team at the University of Utah, says fast-acting insulin can reduce the risk of blood sugar and other serious diabetes complications.
It can also improve the performance of insulin pumps or artificial pancreas devices, she said, noting that this method will help automatically release insulin into the body as needed.
Safavi explains that the goal of this research is to 'help diabetics control blood sugar more tightly and quickly'.
Overcoming pivotal problems
The research team encountered some problems with insulin aggregation in the diabetic pancreas as well as the speed and strength of its effect, and Cho and his colleagues have already sought to overcome these problems by adapting conical insulin to work more effectively and increase its effectiveness.
The research team used structural biology and medicinal chemistry techniques to isolate four amino acids that help snail insulin bind to the future of insulin. They then created a cut version of the human insulin molecule without the area responsible for the clumping.
'Mini' insulin
The team incorporated modified versions of these amino acids into the human molecule in the hope of creating a hybrid that does not clump and binds human insulin receptors with high power.
In tests in mice, the hybrid insulin molecule, which scientists call 'miniature insulin', interacted with insulin receptors in ways that iconic helix insulin does not deal with. These new reactions led to the binding of miniature insulin to insulin receptors in the body of mice as strong as normal human insulin.
A new generation of diabetes treatments
Professor Zhu says: 'Microinsulin has enormous potential. With a few strategic alternatives, an effective and fast-acting molecular structure, which is smaller than fully active insulin to date, has been created.'
'Because of their small size, they should be easy to install, making them a key candidate for the development of a new generation of insulin treatments,' explains Professor Zhu.
Snail hunting mechanism for its prey
Creeping conical snails slide across coral reefs, and live to catch their prey by secreting poison in the surrounding waters. This poison causes the prey to temporary paralysis and the snail then emerges from its crust (conical cochlear) and feeds on the prey.
The poison, specifically secreted by the Conus geographus snail strain, contains a unique form of insulin, which causes blood glucose levels to drop in nearby fish, temporarily dislocated.
Zhu and his colleagues discovered that the poisonous insulin from the snail has similar characteristics to human insulin and their experiments have shown that it works faster than other types of insulin.
Fast-acting
Helena Safavi, an assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen and a member of the research team at the University of Utah, says fast-acting insulin can reduce the risk of blood sugar and other serious diabetes complications.
It can also improve the performance of insulin pumps or artificial pancreas devices, she said, noting that this method will help automatically release insulin into the body as needed.
Safavi explains that the goal of this research is to 'help diabetics control blood sugar more tightly and quickly'.
Overcoming pivotal problems
The research team encountered some problems with insulin aggregation in the diabetic pancreas as well as the speed and strength of its effect, and Cho and his colleagues have already sought to overcome these problems by adapting conical insulin to work more effectively and increase its effectiveness.
The research team used structural biology and medicinal chemistry techniques to isolate four amino acids that help snail insulin bind to the future of insulin. They then created a cut version of the human insulin molecule without the area responsible for the clumping.
'Mini' insulin
The team incorporated modified versions of these amino acids into the human molecule in the hope of creating a hybrid that does not clump and binds human insulin receptors with high power.
In tests in mice, the hybrid insulin molecule, which scientists call 'miniature insulin', interacted with insulin receptors in ways that iconic helix insulin does not deal with. These new reactions led to the binding of miniature insulin to insulin receptors in the body of mice as strong as normal human insulin.
A new generation of diabetes treatments
Professor Zhu says: 'Microinsulin has enormous potential. With a few strategic alternatives, an effective and fast-acting molecular structure, which is smaller than fully active insulin to date, has been created.'
'Because of their small size, they should be easy to install, making them a key candidate for the development of a new generation of insulin treatments,' explains Professor Zhu.
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