Researchers Find a Molecular Mechanism Involved in Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease in which the body does not produce enough insulin, or does not use it efficiently. It is caused by the combination of a genetic predisposition to obesity, sedentarism, and an unhealthy diet, and it affects millions of people around the world. Now, researchers of the University of Barcelona (UB), the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB). and the Diabetes and Associated Metabolic Diseases Networking Biomedical Centre (CIBERDEM), have identified a molecular mechanism involved in the development of this disease. The study, published in the May 2023 issue of Redox Biology, has described —in patients and animal model samples of type 2 diabetes— a decrease in mitochondrial proteins that synthesize complex subunits of the respiratory chain. This decrease in proteins is associated with an increase in intracellular nitric oxide which, according to the researchers, could be a method for diagnosing the disease. The article is titled “Decreased Expression of Mitochondrial Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases Causes Downregulation of OXPHOS Subunits in Type 2 Diabetic Muscle.”