Research at the University of Dundee highlights the potential of a new Drug Lead for the treatment of Diabetes
The over-production of glucose in the liver and the loss of glucose clearance in muscle, fat and liver underlies the increase in blood glucose that occurs in diabetes. Maturity Onset or Type II Diabetes is the most common disease of metabolism. It affects over 3% of the UK population and more than 150 million people worldwide, and the incidence is expected to double over the next 10 years as a result of our increasing caloric intake and the more sedentary lifestyles that we now lead. Type II diabetes accounts for 85-90% of all cases of Diabetes and, in contrast to Juvenile Onset or Type I diabetes, is not caused by a failure to produce insulin, but by the tissues becoming resistant to insulin. There are very few effective therapies for Type II diabetes and many pharmaceutical companies are now attempting to identify ways of mimicking the effect of insulin on the body in an attempt to alleviate this disease. One avenue of attack is to develop drugs that simulate the insulin's ability to modulate particular enzymes in the tissues, an area in which researchers at Dundee have made important contributions.
Now recent Wellcome Trust funded research at the University of Dundee, carried out in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, has revealed a new site of action for one of the Drug Leads that emphasises its potential for the treatment of Type II Diabetes.
Dr Calum Sutherland, a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow in the University's School of Life Sciences, working with Dr Matthew Coghlan at GlaxoSmithKline, has found that the Drug Lead suppresses the production of the enzymes that produce glucose in the liver. The Drug Lead was developed by GSK with the help of Sir Philip Cohen and the Division of Signal Transduction and Therapy at the University of Dundee. It was Sir Philip Cohen who some 20 years ago discovered the enzyme that the drug inhibits and which, by a remarkable coincidence goes by the acronym GSK3!. The drug was previously known to promote the clearance of glucose in the blood by stimulating its conversion to glycogen (a storage form of glucose) in the tissues. The new finding now suggests that the drug may be doubly effective in lowering the level of blood glucose because it prevents the formation of glucose as well as enhancing its clearance from the blood.