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Electrogenetic insulin

04.06.2020

The desired level of insulin in the blood can be maintained using an implant that releases the hormone in response to a radio signal.

Normally, insulin levels rise after eating: special cells in the pancreas (beta cells) that synthesize it sense the increase in blood glucose levels and secrete insulin. Body cells receive an insulin signal and begin to actively absorb glucose. But if the cells of the pancreas do not work, if there are few of them, if they died (as in type XNUMX diabetes), then you have to monitor the level of insulin yourself.

The level of insulin should rise in a timely manner, it should not be too little or too much. Regular insulin injections should be done strictly before meals, and in no case should you forget to eat after the injection, otherwise the sugar level will drop very much. However, long-acting insulin preparations have been available for a relatively long time: they do not begin to act immediately, but after an hour, two, or even eight hours, and then such preparations also act for a very long time, up to 30 hours. Insulin is gradually released into the blood, as if simulating the normal functioning of the insulin-synthesizing cells of the pancreas.

Researchers at the ETH Zurich have gone a step further and designed an insulin implant that delivers insulin via a radio signal from the outside. The implant consists of two parts, electronic and cellular. The electronic part is a microcircuit that receives a signal and generates an electrical impulse. Living beta cells sit in the cellular part, which receive an electrical impulse and release insulin in response.

Of course, these cells are not simple, but modified: they synthesize proteins that allow calcium and potassium ions to pass through the membrane. The molecular ion gate senses an electrical impulse, ions begin to move in and out of the cell, and this rearrangement of ions sets off a chain of intracellular signals that reach the insulin gene.

In another version, cells synthesized insulin anyway, accumulating it inside themselves in membrane vesicles - an electrical impulse forced the cell to bring these vesicles to the outer membrane and empty them outward. An article in Science says that the implant worked successfully in type 10 diabetic mice: Insulin concentrations peaked XNUMX minutes after the beep, and blood sugar quickly dropped to normal levels.

Such an implant can be turned on from an application in a smartphone, moreover, the implant itself can be improved so that it senses the level of glucose in the blood, so that it works autonomously, like heart pacemakers. True, the cells in it will still have to be periodically changed, and this procedure obviously should not be complicated and expensive, otherwise the electrogenetic implant will not be able to compete with other insulin agents.

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