American and Chilean scientists introduced a defective protein into the body of healthy mice, after which they observed a chain reaction of an increase in defective proteins and developed diabetes..

Proteins can act as infectious agents and cause disease. Such proteins include, for example, prions, which are distinguished by an abnormal tertiary structure. Once in a healthy body, prions can multiply, turning healthy proteins into prions..

Such a chain reaction leads to fatal diseases in animals and humans.. For example, prions stimulate the formation of amyloids - sticky protein structures.. In type II diabetes, patients in the cells of the pancreas also form amyloid protein aggregates - islet amyloid polypeptides (IAPP). In a new study, scientists decided to test whether IAPPs, like prions, can act as infectious agents and infect healthy individuals..

Scientists study cultured human pancreatic cells. They added crushed particles (homogenates) of cells from the pancreas of transgenic diabetic mice, which, in turn, contained extensive aggregates of human IAPP.. As a result, the formation of new defective accumulations of IAPP was observed in cultured cells.. "

To test their findings, the researchers decided to see how artificially introduced tissue particles with defective IAPPs would behave in a living organism.. To do this, they introduced a homogenate of the pancreas of old mice with type II diabetes and massive amyloid deposits into the body of young healthy mice.. Four groups of healthy mice were taken, five each.

The analysis showed that already from the 8th week in the organisms of mice injected with IAPP, there was an increased formation of accumulations of amyloid deposits.. At the same time, such mice had the main signs of the development of diabetes: an increase in blood glucose levels and the death of pancreatic cells.. To further test their findings, the scientists injected healthy mice with a homogenate from cells from diabetic mice without IAPP proteins.. In this case, the formation of amyloid deposits did not occur..

To finally confirm their hypothesis, the scientists injected the purified IAPP into healthy cells.. And after that, a chain reaction was observed: defective amyloid accumulations increased. Scientists were forced to state that it was possible to cause diabetes by introducing defective proteins into a healthy body that act as infectious agents, such as prions..

Study published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine.

aspect. net.