30 January 2008

Diabetic Inflammation

After reading the article about diabetes the one underlying theme was that of inflammation.  I know that the macrophages are responsible for inflammation but what i didn't get was what part of the body becomes inflamed.  Is there an typical area where inflammation occurs due to diabetes such as in the pancreatic beta cells, the liver or certain muscles or is just simply where the most adipocytes coalesce?

3 comments:

AMSTitanic said...

Researchers Focus On Inflammation In War Against Type 1 Diabetes

I think this is the article you are referring to, if not oh well :) I was just wondering if anyone knew why or how inflammation reduces the effect of insulin on the cells?

Alisa85 said...

Hey Dan! I took this colloquium last semester before I graduated and I found diabetes to be a particularly tough immune related disease. One thing I did pick up on though is that diabetes has more systemic inflammation associated with it. Look at some of the symptoms that are associated with diabetes. I found some really interesting information in regards to your question by just doing a Google search for "diabetes localization of inflammation" if you're interested in delving a little deeper :). Hope this helps!

-Alisa

huyn495 said...

In response to Amelia:

"Insulin affects cells through binding to its receptor on the surface of insulin-responsive cells. The stimulated insulin receptor phosphorylates itself and several substrates, including members of the insulin receptor substrate (IRS) family, thus initiating downstream signaling events (32, 33). The inhibition of signaling downstream of the insulin receptor is a primary mechanism through which inflammatory signaling leads to insulin resistance. Exposure of cells to TNF-α or elevated levels of free fatty acids stimulates inhibitory phosphorylation of serine residues of IRS-1 (34–36). This phosphorylation reduces both tyrosine phosphorylation of IRS-1 in response to insulin and the ability of IRS-1 to associate with the insulin receptor and thereby inhibits downstream signaling and insulin action (35, 37, 38)."

And also:

"Macrophages in adipose tissue are likely to contribute to the production of inflammatory mediators either alone or in concert with adipocytes, which suggests a potentially important influence of macrophages in promoting insulin resistance. However, no direct evidence has been offered to establish this connection thus far."

I got this from: http://www.jci.org/115/5/1111?content_type=full