Molecular link between high fat diets and type 2 diabetes established

Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have discovered a molecular link between a high-fat, Western-style diet, and the onset of type 2 diabetes. In studies in mice, the scientists showed that a high-fat diet disrupts insulin production, resulting in the classic signs of type 2 diabetes.

In an article published in the December 29, 2005, issue of the journal Cell, the researchers report that knocking out a single gene encoding the enzyme GnT-4a glycosyltransferase (GnT-4a ) disrupts insulin production. Importantly, the scientists showed that a high-fat diet suppresses the activity of GnT-4a and leads to type 2 diabetes due to failure of the pancreatic beta cells.

The experiments point to a mechanistic explanation for why failing pancreatic beta cells don't sense glucose properly and how that can lead to impaired insulin production, said Jamey Marth, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Marth and first author Kazuaki Ohtsubo at UCSD collaborated on the studies with researchers from the Kirin Brewery Co. Ltd., and the University of Fukui, both in Japan.

The discovery of the link between diet and insulin production offers new information that may aid in the development of treatments that target the early stages of type 2 diabetes. In its earliest phases, the disease causes failure of insulin-secreting beta cells in the pancreas, which leads to elevated blood glucose levels. As the disease progresses, the insulin-secreting beta cells overcompensate for the elevated blood glucose, and eventually pump out too much insulin. This leads to insulin resistance and full-blown type 2 diabetes.

The new studies suggest that people with an inherited predisposition to type 2 diabetes might have variations in the gene for GnT-4a, said the researchers. Worldwide, more than 200 million people have type 2 diabetes, and close to 20 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with the disorder.

Marth and his colleagues began their studies hoping to learn more about the function of protein glycosylation in the pancreas. They focused on the function of GnT-4a, in part, because it is highly expressed in the pancreas. GnT-4a is a type of enzyme known as a glycosyltransferase that attaches sugar-like molecules called glycans to proteins in a process called glycosylation. Glycans are essential for the proper function of many proteins.

GnT-4a was known to maintain glucose transporters on the surface of beta cells in the pancreas. Those transporters, such as Glut-2, play a crucial role in allowing the beta cell to sense how much glucose is in the blood. Transport of glucose across the cell membrane into pancreatic beta cells triggers insulin secretion.

The new studies showed that in the absence of sufficient GnT-4a enzyme, Glut-2 lacks an attached glycan that is required for it to be expressed at the cell membrane. Without that glycan, Glut-2 leaves the cell surface and becomes internalized, where it can no longer transport glucose into the cell. In turn, this failure impairs insulin secretion, causing type 2 diabetes in the mice.