Bavaria, Jan. 4 -- : Insulin is a hormone that is required by humans and many other living things. Its most well-known function is to control sugar metabolism. Much less is known about how insulin-producing cells, and thus insulin secretion, are controlled.
A team from the Biocenter of Julius-Maximilians-Universitat (JMU) Wurzburg in Bavaria, Germany, has now presented news on this question in the scientific journal Current Biology. Dr. Jan Ache's group used the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as their study object. Interestingly, this fly also secretes insulin after a meal. However, in the fly, the hormone does not come from the pancreas as in humans, but is instead released by nerve cells in the brain.
Electrophysiological measurement...