Contagious diabetes
Type 2 diabetes managed to "infect" mice
Anna Kerman, XX2 century, based on EurekAlert: Researchers demonstrate transmission of diabetes symptoms via prion-like mechanism
A group of researchers from the McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston found that the development of diabetes symptoms can be induced by the introduction of an abnormal form of protein normally produced by the pancreas. The results of the work are published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
The data obtained increase the likelihood that type 2 diabetes mellitus can be transmitted by a mechanism similar to the mechanism of prion diseases, for example, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy ("mad cow disease").
Prion diseases are a group of neurodegenerative diseases of humans and animals. Prion diseases are characterized by progressive damage to the central nervous system (including the brain). They are caused by special compounds, prions. In fact, these are proteins that have the ability to reproduce. Diseases caused by prions are severe and, as a rule, end in death.
Type 2 diabetes is a disease that affects millions of people around the world. Although its development is usually associated with hereditary factors and an unhealthy lifestyle, the exact causes of type 2 diabetes are still unknown.
More than 90% of patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus have pathological deposits of islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP) in islet cells. The role of this protein is still unclear, but it is known that it is able to damage insulin-producing islet cells and even cause their death. From this point of view, type 2 diabetes may be similar to other diseases caused by deposits of pathological proteins – for example, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and prion diseases.
The main feature of such diseases is that even small amounts of pathological proteins can act as "seeds". These "seeds" "germinate", causing nearby proteins to also change shape, which leads to the appearance of large clusters that damage cellular structures. In the case of prion diseases, such "seeds" can be transmitted from one infected person to another.
A group of scientists led by Claudio Soto found that the introduction of small amounts of the pathological protein IAPP to mice provokes the formation of protein deposits in the pancreas of animals. A few weeks after the injection, the mice developed some symptoms of type 2 diabetes. In particular, the animals lost part of the islet cells, and the blood glucose level in the organisms of experimental mice increased. In addition, clusters of pathological protein IAPP began to form in the pancreas of animals.
Although the developed model disease turned out to be in many ways similar to prion diseases, Soto warns that it is too early to declare diabetes mellitus contagious.
"It is necessary to take into account the experimental nature of the models and the conditions used in the study. Until the results of the following studies are summed up, the results [of our work] should not be extrapolated, stating that type 2 diabetes is an infectious disease transmitted from person to person," explains Soto.
Although there are isolated descriptions of cases when type 2 diabetes mellitus developed after transplantation, epidemiological studies on this topic have never been conducted, the authors of the new work note. "However," the researchers continue, "it can be assumed that the "prion–like" mechanism plays an important role in the transmission of the disease from cell to cell, provoking the progress of the disease."
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