Our bacteria are more personal than we thought, new study shows

The trillions of bacteria that call your body home—collectively known as the microbiome—appear to be unique to you, like a fingerprint. That's one conclusion of a detailed study of the gut, mouth, nose and skin microbiomes ...

Simplifying the way cell proliferation is monitored in mice

Observing cell proliferation in living animals for a long period requires collecting and analyzing animal organs at multiple points in time. This cumbersome process requires an abundance of resources, including animals.

Study shows nanoclusters of insulin can control insulin activity

A study published in Nature Nanotechnology shows how nanoclusters of insulin can control insulin activity. The results can lead to new types of insulin drugs, senior author Ana Teixeira at the Department of Medical Biochemistry ...

Computational model helps with diabetes drug design

For diabetes patients who must give themselves frequent insulin injections, the risk of low blood sugar can be life-threatening. A potential solution is a type of engineered insulin that circulates in the body and springs ...

Revealing the biology of insulin production

The discovery of insulin has saved the lives of millions of people with diabetes worldwide, but little is known about the first step of insulin synthesis.

Scientists make advances in breeding high-resistant-starch rice

Scientists have shown that the loss of function of two paralogous starch biosynthetic genes contributes to an increase in resistant starch (RS) content in cooked rice, providing insights into the generation of high-RS varieties ...

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Insulin

More reference expression data

Insulin is a hormone that has extensive effects on metabolism and other body functions, such as vascular compliance. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle, and stopping use of fat as an energy source. When insulin is absent (or low), glucose is not taken up by body cells, and the body begins to use fat as an energy source, for example, by transfer of lipids from adipose tissue to the liver for mobilization as an energy source. As its level is a central metabolic control mechanism, its status is also used as a control signal to other body systems (such as amino acid uptake by body cells). It has several other anabolic effects throughout the body. When control of insulin levels fails, diabetes mellitus results.

Insulin is used medically to treat some forms of diabetes mellitus. Patients with Type 1 diabetes mellitus depend on external insulin (most commonly injected subcutaneously) for their survival because the hormone is no longer produced internally. Patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus are insulin resistant, and because of such resistance, may suffer from a relative insulin deficiency. Some patients with Type 2 diabetes may eventually require insulin when other medications fail to control blood glucose levels adequately.

Insulin is a peptide hormone composed of 51 amino acids and has a molecular weight of 5808 Da. It is produced in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas. The name comes from the Latin insula for "island".

Insulin's structure varies slightly between species of animal. Insulin from animal sources differs somewhat in 'strength' (in carbohydrate metabolism control effects) in humans because of those variations. Porcine (pig) insulin is especially close to the human version.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA