A piece of DNA opens the door to a cure for diabetes

any of the approximately 10 million people living in the world diabetes type 1 You know very well how the pancreas works. it human stomach organ It is a perfect juice and hormone production machine. Among them, one of the most important, insulin It is important for glucose to enter cells as a source of energy. A perfect machine, except when it fails.

diabetes type 1Failure of the pancreatic cell cluster that produces insulin, is a terminal illness Whose incidents are not increasing in the world. Although there are effective treatments that allow patients to lead normal lives by providing artificial insulin, science is still far from understanding why the pancreas crisis that causes diabetes occurs.

And now, scientists at the University of Exeter have announced an unexpected discovery, a gene that is essential for human pancreas development and is not found in most other mammals.

Responsible for the production of insulin in a healthy pancreas are the so-called beta cells, Any mammal needs these to survive. Without them, glucose is obtained through consumption of foods. carbohydrates cannot be processed, it accumulates in the blood and produces died as a result of a toxic reaction If not corrected. Diabetics have suffered partial or complete destruction of their beta cells for reasons that are not yet fully understood.

New discovery published in journal “Nature Genetics” This represents a paradigm shift in the understanding of how the pancreas develops.

An idea long held by evolutionary science is that the genes required for the development of vital organs such as the heart, liver or pancreas are very stable throughout evolution and are found in many species that come from distant common stock. . All animals alive today come from the same evolutionary origin, so we have a common genetic ancestor. Many genes disappear when moving from one species to another, but some, the most important, can be found distributed in creatures as diverse as fish, lions or humans.

However, Exeter experts in collaboration with researchers from the Universities of Helsinki and Cambridge have made a discovery gene (ZNF808) he belongs to Of utmost importance in the development of pancreas And it exists only in humans and our closest cousins: gorillas, chimpanzees and some monkeys.

This discovery is a surprise for evolutionary biologists, equivalent to the meaning of finding a new type of sun in our solar system. As far as is known, it is the only gene required for the development of a vital organ that is not present in any non-primate animal. It is common to find species-specific genes that control specific functions of that species – the size of a fish’s gills or an elephant’s trunk. But the pancreas is an organ shared by all vertebrates. Why does the human pancreas have such a unique gene?

It is clear that, at some point in evolution, there was a twist in the genetic script that affected only primates. As a result of this jump, the ZNF808 gene appeared, a gene that is one of a family of those responsible for “turning off” certain regions of DNA. It is believed that these areas are called “Junk DNA”They do not have any specific function.

But the truth is that new technologies have started finding the meaning of those genes which were earlier considered useless. Such findings may help us better understand the function performed by previously ignored genes. In this case, ZNF808 has been identified after studying type 1 diabetic patients as well as individuals who were born without a pancreas directly due to congenital disease. Through comparison, it was discovered that the gene is essential in the development of the baby before birth, and from there the body activates cataractous functions to form organs.