(Defeat Diabetes® News) -- Recent stem cell research at the University of California, San Diego, has uncovered a signaling pathway associated with the development of the pancreas, which has close ties to the onset of type 2 diabetes. The hope is that this research will lead to the ability to target the specific pathway to treat or prevent type 2 diabetes.

 

Type 2 diabetes results most generally from decreased insulin sensitivity to insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. This leads to a diminished ability to regulate blood glucose levels, and can be extremely dangerous and potentially fatal if not monitored and treated properly. For this reason, the pancreas is of significant importance in diabetes research, in attempts to find more efficient methods for both producing and recognizing insulin within diabetic bodies. In this particular research, however, the discovery of what is being referred to as the Wnt pathway, was a byproduct of recent pancreatic stem-cell research, and was not initially intended to have direct consequences on future diabetic treatments.

 

According to the researchers, the Wnt signaling pathway is directly connected to the natural development of the pancreas. It was found that certain "protein interactions" in the pathway behave differently in type 2 diabetics than in non-diabetic individuals. Specifically, type 2 diabetics had higher levels of the protein beta-catenin, which acts to "activate certain genes," and resides in insulin producing beta-cells. It was found that when activated, the Wnt pathways leads to the destruction of these insulin producing beta-cells, making it a potential risk-factor for type 2 diabetes.

Lead researcher, Dr. Pamela Itkin-Ansari describes the significane of discovering the new signaling pathway;"It is now clear that progenitor cells, with the capacity to become insulin producing cells, reside in the adult pancreas. The key to harnessing those cells to treat diabetes is to understand the signaling pathways that are active in the pancreas under both normal and disease conditions. In the course of that research we found that Wnt signaling activity, which plays a critical role in the development of the pancreas, re-emerges in type 2 diabetes."