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Smart insulin switches itself off in response to low blood sugar

Scientists have engineered a modified insulin that reduces its activity at low glucose levels. This glucose-responsive insulin could prevent people with diabetes from experiencing dangerously low blood glucose.
By
  1. David B. Sacks

    1. David B. Sacks is in the Department of Laboratory Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.

Diabetes mellitus afflicts more than half a billion people worldwide and causes nearly seven million deaths per year1. The disease is characterized by a high concentration of glucose in the blood, owing to insufficient production of, or impaired responses to, the hormone insulin. Injecting synthetic insulin lowers blood glucose, but exercise or skipping meals can lead to hypoglycaemia (low blood glucose), which is a complication much feared by people with diabetes, because it can lead to loss of consciousness, coma or death. To avoid this situation, attempts to produce glucose-controlled insulin were initiated 45 years ago2 and many strategies have been used since then, but without success. Writing in Nature, Hoeg-Jensen et al.3 describe the engineering of a glucose-regulated insulin that can alter its own activity in response to glucose concentration.

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Nature 634, 785-787 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03286-5

References

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  3. Hoeg-Jensen, T. et al. Nature 634, 944–951 (2024).

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  4. Diabetes Control and Complications Trial Research Group. N. Engl. J. Med. 329, 977–986 (1993).

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  5. American Diabetes Association Professional Practice Committee. Diabetes Care 47, S111–S125 (2024).

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  8. Disotuar, M. M., Chen, D., Lin, N.-P. & Chou, D. H.-C. J. Diabetes Sci. Technol. 14, 198–203 (2020).

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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