2. Academic Validation
  3. High-throughput luminescent reporter of insulin secretion for discovering regulators of pancreatic Beta-cell function

High-throughput luminescent reporter of insulin secretion for discovering regulators of pancreatic Beta-cell function

  • Cell Metab. 2015 Jan 6;21(1):126-37. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2014.12.010.
Sean M Burns 1,  Amedeo Vetere 2,  Deepika Walpita 2,  Vlado Dančík 2,  Carol Khodier 3,  Jose Perez 3,  Paul A Clemons 2,  Bridget K Wagner 2,  David Altshuler 4
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Diabetes Unit of the Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA; Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA; Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA; Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].
  • 2 Center for the Science of Therapeutics, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
  • 3 Center for the Development of Therapeutics, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
  • 4 Diabetes Unit of the Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA; Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA; Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA; Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA; Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA; Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
PMID: 25565210 DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2014.12.010
Abstract

Defects in Insulin secretion play a central role in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes, yet the mechanisms driving beta-cell dysfunction remain poorly understood, and therapies to preserve glucose-dependent Insulin release are inadequate. We report a luminescent Insulin secretion assay that enables large-scale investigations of beta-cell function, created by inserting Gaussia luciferase into the C-peptide portion of proinsulin. Beta-cell lines expressing this construct cosecrete luciferase and Insulin in close correlation, under both standard conditions or when stressed by cytokines, fatty acids, or ER toxins. We adapted the reporter for high-throughput assays and performed a 1,600-compound pilot screen, which identified several classes of drugs inhibiting secretion, as well as glucose-potentiated secretagogues that were confirmed to have activity in primary human islets. Requiring 40-fold less time and expense than the traditional ELISA, this assay may accelerate the identification of pathways governing Insulin secretion and compounds that safely augment beta-cell function in diabetes.

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