Insulin Secretion Research Is More than Diabetes

Dear Colleagues,

Since Claude Bernard's seminal work in the 19th century, we have known that our blood sugar concentration is regulated to be as constant as possible. These early works highlighted the complexity of a "physiological" system whose goal is to maintain a constant energy supply of glucose, regardless of dietary conditions. Minkowski's discovery of the role of the pancreas in the maintenance of glycemia was a key step, as Hedon, in 1893, quickly provided proof. Finally, it was the work of F. G. Banting that led to the discovery of insulin (1921). He hypothesized an endocrine function of the pancreas, in the islets of Langerhans. Langerhans described the histology of the pancreas and analyzed the morphology of the islets a few years before. The use of insulin as a hypoglycemic hormone spread rapidly to treat diabetics, starting in 1923. It became the "protein of the 20th century". It was crystallized in 1925 by Abel and finally sequenced by Sanger in 1954. Sanger described the sequence as two peptide chains A and B of 21 and 30 amino acids, linked by two disulfide bridges.

Since then, insulin has been continuously improved and optimized for therapeutic purposes. In terms of research, the effort has been constant and extensive. This work has made it possible to describe in detail the processes of insulin secretion, the mechanisms of regulation of its expression, and more. This has made it possible to show how alterations in one or another of these regulations have physiological consequences that lead to type 2 diabetes. Today there is still a great deal of work being devoted to the elucidation of the molecular machinery that controls insulin secretion, and especially its dysfunction. It is therefore still useful to continue to increase knowledge in this area. Even if the subject is old, it is one of the most active research areas both in terms of important fundamental discoveries and in terms of methodological developments. The purpose of this series of papers is to show the vitality of this field of research and to highlight its creativity.

Dr. Thierry Coppola
Guest Editor

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