Open to Control — New Hope for Patients with Neonatal Diabetes

Pancreatic beta cells, the insulin-releasing cells of the islets of Langerhans, are electrically excitable cells. They sense fluctuations in the plasma glucose concentration and convert the signal into a change in electrical activity that modulates insulin secretion. Mutations affecting the molecular machinery underlying this conversion are prime suspects in the causation of diabetes mellitus, in which an increase in the plasma glucose level is not adequately matched by increased insulin secretion. At the heart of the mechanism that changes the metabolic signal into an electrical one lies the ATP-sensitive potassium channel (KATP channel); polymorphisms in this channel have recently . . .