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News & Blogs » Protein News » New Study Identifies Four Viruses that Can Produce Insulin-like hormones that Stimulate Human Cells

Scientists Unlock the Mechanism Behind Snakes Straight Movements

Mar 07, 2018

Mechanism Behind Snakes Straight Movements Picture In a new study published in PNAS, scientists have identified four viruses that are able to produce insulin-like hormones that elicit a response from human cells. What could this discovery mean for diseases such as cancer and diabetes?

In a new and unexpected study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists at the Joslin Diabetes Center have identified four viruses that are able to produce insulin-like peptides that can act on human and rodent cells. This new discovery opens the door to understanding the potential role of microbes in human diseases, particularly in the case of diabetes. In order to begin this study, researchers began analyzing large public databases that hold viral genomic sequences. During this analysis, it was found that several viruses can produce peptides that are similar in part to 16 human hormones and regulatory proteins. There were four distinct viruses, from a family of viruses known to infect fish, that had insulin-like sequences. In order to test if these peptides were active in mammals, scientists chemically synthesized these viral-insulin-like peptides (VILPs).

Testing the VILPs in mouse and human cells yielded interesting results. The VILPs could actually bind to the human insulin receptors and also to receptors for IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1). These proteins are critical for glucose uptake in the cell and also for cell growth. The VILPs were also able to stimulate all the signaling pathways inside the cell that were stimulated by IGF-1 or human insulin. In mice, these VILPs were also able to lower blood glucose levels. Interestingly, further data analysis has shown that these microbes are exposed to these viruses in the human intestine. Scientists speculate that the presence of these microbial insulin-like molecules may be an environmental trigger to the autoimmune response that occurs before the onset of Type 1 diabetes. Further study is needed to really elucidate the function of these viruses and how they may play a role in other disease forms such as.