The study was conceptualised and conducted by Dr Kedar Ghimire and Professor Natasha Rogers.\u00a0 Team leader and senior author of the study, Professor Rogers is Deputy Director of WIMR\u2019s Centre for Transplant and Renal Research and Head of Transplantation at Westmead Hospital.\u00a0 She explains, \u201cPancreatic islets are cells in your pancreas that make insulin.<\/p>\n
\u201cCD47 is a kind of protein that is found on the surface of all cells in the body, including pancreatic islets. Essentially, CD47 tells immune cells whether or not to destroy whatever cell it is attached to.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur study shows that CD47 also plays a significant role in how the pancreas secretes insulin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within a pancreatic islet, large amounts of insulin sit within granules and these are released in waves, as needed.\u00a0 The first wave of insulin sits just under the cell membrane.<\/p>\n
Professor Rogers says, \u201cIf the pancreatic islet registers that you have high glucose, it will release that initial pool of insulin, and the next wave of granules then move up in position to replace the insulin that has just been released.\u201d<\/p>\n
First author, Dr Kedar Ghimire says the study found that CD47 plays a significant role in this process.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe discovered that CD47 regulates how these insulin-filled granules move to the surface; how they \u2018dock\u2019 at the surface; and how they interact.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this new understanding of the role of CD47, we have been able to show that targeting its function can improve glucose control.\u201d<\/p>\n
PhD student Atharva Kale, who is supervised by Professor Rogers (pictured) and Dr G![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/224070cf-7711-47a0-b277-d2c9550b80ab_222_292.jpg\")
himire, and is a co-author on the paper, says that while the research is still in its early stages, these findings have a number of potential benefits for glucose control in diabetics.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that people with a predisposition for getting diabetes or who have recently been diagnosed will be able to delay the need for treatment.”<\/p>\n
Dr Ghimire adds, \u201cWhen someone is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, they can go through a \u2018honeymoon phase\u2019 where they don\u2019t require any treatment and their islets are still working.\u00a0 If these people can be identified in this early phase, or as having a predisposition to type 1 diabetes, we can hopefully delay their onset.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that type 2 diabetics may also benefit from this finding as targeting the function of CD47 can improve overall blood glucose control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another potential benefit of this finding involves pancreatic islet transplantation, a procedure that was pioneered at WIMR by Executive Director, Professor Philip O\u2019Connell who undertook Australia\u2019s first successful clinical trial of islet transplantation and has been responsible for its transition into the Australian healthcare system.<\/p>\n
Professor Natasha Rogers says, \u201cOne of the challenges we face with pancreatic islet transplantation is that islet cells are very fragile.\u00a0 The process of isolating islet cells and transplanting them into someone is damaging to the cells and this can impact their function. We think that by targeting the CD47 molecule, we can actually improve how the islets function after transplant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve also shown you can target CD47 in the pancreatic islet cells outside the body, before they are transplanted.\u00a0 This seems to protect them so that even after the islets have been transplanted, they continue to function well.\u00a0 This could potentially reduce the number of transplants required in order for a patient to gain better or full glucose control.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the research is in its early stages, the WIMR team is confident that these findings will have broader implications.<\/p>\n
Professor Rogers says, \u201cThere is a lot more work to do in the lab. We believe that CD47 affects more than just insulin secretion.\u00a0 We think there are a lot of other biological mechanisms, relevant to people with any form of diabetes, and we hope to explore these further.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a world first, researchers at WIMR\u00a0have discovered that altering the way a protein called CD47 is expressed can change how pancreatic islet cells secrete insulin. The implications of this finding, published in\u00a0Science Translational Medicine, could help improve glucose control for people with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The study was conceptualised and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3276,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"categories":[19],"class_list":["post-3275","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cat-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/3275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wimr.org.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}