Diabetes and cancer: bound by the same gene

The gene responsible for insulin sensitivity has been found

Copper newsA group of scientists from Oxford and Cambridge Universities (Great Britain) for the first time managed to isolate the gene responsible for the sensitivity of tissues to the action of insulin.

The authors suggest that this achievement will change the approach to the treatment of type 2 diabetes. The work was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (Ulf Smith, PTEN — Linking Metabolism, Cell Growth, and Cancer).

The authors made their discovery by studying the metabolic profile of patients suffering from Cowden syndrome, a very rare genetic disease characterized, among other things, by the growth of multiple benign tumors (hamart), an increased risk of developing malignant neoplasms and obesity. It is known that this process is caused by a mutation in the tumor suppressor gene PTEN (phosphatase with double substrate specificity).

15 patients with Cowden syndrome were selected, whose glycemic profile was compared with the indicators of participants in the control group. It turned out that patients with the mutated PTEN gene have significantly higher tissue sensitivity to insulin. In response to the intake of even a small amount of glucose into the body, the hormone produced by the cells of the pancreas quickly reduces its concentration in the blood.

The revealed new role of the PTEN gene – it turned out that, in addition to suppressing tumor growth, it participates in metabolic processes, and its inactivation gives the opposite effect observed in type II diabetes, which is characterized by a decrease in tissue sensitivity to the action of insulin (insulin resistance) – allows a different look at the biological processes involved in the development of diabetes, it is believed the authors of the study.

In addition, this discovery, as emphasized by one of the authors of the work, Dr. Anna Gloyn (Anna Gloyn), quoted by FoxNews (Single gene mutation found to cause insulin sensitivity), will undoubtedly advance the development of methods for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, but further research is needed. "If you just develop a PTEN inhibitor, you will dramatically increase the chances of developing malignant tumors and you will have to choose either cancer or diabetes," Gloin noted.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru19.09.2012