MRC Programme Award to Cell Biology Section, DEM

The Award (£1.5 m in total) is for a Programme Grant entitled “Role of NAADP and TPC proteins in stimulus-secretion coupling in pancreatic β-cells”

The Award (£1.5 m in total) is for a Programme Grant entitled “Role of NAADP and TPC proteins in stimulus-secretion coupling in pancreatic β-cells” and is co-awarded to Prof Antony Galione, Patrick Rorsman and John Parrington  (Oxford) with Prof Guy A. Rutter at Imperial College. Defective insulin secretion is a feature of all forms of diabetes, a disease which affects more than 300 m people worldwide and consumes ~ 10 % of healthcare budgets in most westernised societies. The goal of the present study is to examine the importance of a novel intracellular signalling cascade, involving a molecule termed NAADP which is a potent mobilize of intracellular calcium stores, whose importance in the pancreatic beta cell was first described independently by Profs  Rutter and Galione in 2003. Professor Galione’s group has now identified a putative receptor for NAADP, whose inactivation in mice leads to  defective insulin secretion. Professor Rutter will further examine the impact of deleting the putative NAADP receptors selectively in the beta cell and examine, using organelle-specific probes developed at Imperial, the specific intracellular store it engages. The hope in the future is to identify novel regulators of this channel as a possible new therapy for type 2 diabetes.