Update on diabetes mellitus

Issue title: MASS SPECTROMETRY AND BIOMARKER DEVELOPMENT

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Korc, Murray

Affiliations: Division of Endocrinology, Departments of Medicine, and Pharmacology and Toxicology, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH, USA

Abstract: Diabetes mellitus is a complex multi-system disorder that may be classified as autoimmune mediated type 1 diabetes, or as insulin resistance associated type 2 diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, there is selective loss of the beta cells within the endocrine islets, as a consequence of T-cell and cytokine mediated destruction of these cells, perhaps in conjunction with destruction of the peri-islet Schwann cells. In type 2 diabetes, the etiology of the resistance ranges from post-receptor defects in the insulin signaling pathway to excessive production of adipocyte derived cytokines that antagonize insulin action to mitochondrial defects that interfere with glucose disposal. Proteome based technologies are providing new insights into these defects.

Keywords: beta cell, insulin resistance, mitochondrial defects, pancreatic cancer

Journal: Disease Markers, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 161-165, 2004