Researchers identify ‘first responder’ cells in pancreas crucial for blood sugar control

Key Takeaways

• Researchers have found a special group of “first responder” cells in the pancreas that are crucial for triggering blood sugar response.
• The research improves our understanding of how the pancreas regulates blood sugar levels, which could ultimately lead to new treatments for diabetes. 

Our bodies need to keep blood sugar levels just right. Too high or too low can be dangerous. How does our body control blood sugar so precisely? An international team led by Prof. Nikolay Ninov at the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden (CRTD), part of Dresden University of Technology, has brought us a step closer to the answer. They found a special group of “first responder” cells in the pancreas that are crucial for triggering blood sugar response. Their findings were published in the journalScience Advances.

To understand the work of the pancreas, the Ninov team turned to zebrafish. This small tropical fish has a pancreas that works similarly to a human one, but it offers a huge advantage. Researchers can use transparent fish that have no pigment whatsoever and observe the pancreas at work in real-time in the living fish.

The group discovered that a small group of beta cells, pancreatic cells that release insulin when blood sugar rises, are more sensitive to sugar levels than the others. These cells respond to glucose quicker than the rest of the cells, so the Ninov team referred to them as “first responder” cells. They initiate the glucose response, which is followed by the remaining “follower cells.” “The first responders lie at the top of the beta cell hierarchy when it comes to control of the sugar response. Interestingly, only about 10% of the beta-cells act as first responders. It suggests that this small population of cells serves as a control center for regulating the activity of the rest of the beta cells,” explains Prof. Ninov.

The researchers further found that first responder cells express a key enzyme involved in transforming the inactive form of dietary vitamin B6 into the form that is active in the cells. When they turned off vitamin B6 production in both the zebrafish and mouse pancreas, they found that the ability of the beta cells to respond to high blood sugar was dramatically reduced in both species. “This indicates that vitamin B6 plays an evolutionarily conserved role in the response to glucose,” says Prof. Ninov. Understanding how Vitamin B6 regulates the beta cells in the pancreas could lead to new insights into the pathology of diabetes and ultimately to new treatments.

Edited by Miriam Kaplan, PhD

Source:

Magdalena Gonciarz, Dresden University of Technology, Medical Xpress, July 4, 2024; see source article