Insulin and its related peptides are found throughout the animal kingdom, in which they serve diverse functions. This includes regulation of glucose homeostasis, neuronal development and cognition. The surprising recent discovery that venomous snails evolved specialized insulins to capture fish demonstrated the nefarious use of this hormone in nature. Because of their streamlined role in predation, these repurposed insulins exhibit unique characteristics that have unraveled new aspects of the chemical ecology and structural biology of this important hormone. Recently, insulins were also reported in other venomous predators and pathogenic viruses, demonstrating the broader use of insulin by one organism to manipulate the physiology of another. In this Review, we provide an overview of the discovery and biomedical application of repurposed insulins and other hormones found in nature and highlight several unique insights gained from these unusual compounds.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41589-022-01068-6 | DOI Listing |
Pharm Res
January 2025
Department of Urology, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH, 44106, USA.
Metabolic alterations are commonly associated with various cancers and are recognized as contributing factors to cancer progression, invasion, and metastasis. Drug repurposing, a strategy in drug discovery, utilizes existing knowledge to recommend established drugs for new indications based on clinical data or biological evidence. This approach is considered a less risky alternative to traditional drug development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInflammopharmacology
January 2025
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Cairo University, ElKasr Elaini Street, Cairo, 11562, Egypt.
The currently approved drugs for Alzheimer's disease (AD) are only for symptomatic treatment in the early stages of the disease but they could not halt the neurodegeneration, additionally, the safety profile of the recently developed immunotherapy is a big issue. This review aims to explain the importance of the drugs repurposing technique and strategy to develop therapy for AD. We illustrated the biological alterations in the pathophysiology of AD including the amyloid pathology, the Tau pathology, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, neuroinflammation, glutamate-mediated excitotoxicity, insulin signaling impairment, wingless-related integration site/β-catenin signaling, and autophagy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDiabetologia
December 2024
Department of Pathology, Immunology, and Laboratory Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Progress in developing therapies for the maintenance of endogenous insulin secretion in, or the prevention of, type 1 diabetes has been hindered by limited animal models, the length and cost of clinical trials, difficulties in identifying individuals who will progress faster to a clinical diagnosis of type 1 diabetes, and heterogeneous clinical responses in intervention trials. Classic placebo-controlled intervention trials often include monotherapies, broad participant populations and extended follow-up periods focused on clinical endpoints. While this approach remains the 'gold standard' of clinical research, efforts are underway to implement new approaches harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery and efficacy testing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHeliyon
October 2024
Department of Medical Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, El- Manial, Cairo 11562, Egypt.
Background: An ideal anti-diabetic type-1 pharmacotherapy should combine abrogation of beta cell pyroptosis with enhancement of beta cell mass.
Objectives: The study investigated the potential synergism from combining the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine with liraglutide (LIR) and probiotics in mitigating Streptozocin (STZ)-induced Type1diabetes mellitus in albino rats suppression of TXNIP/NLRP3 signaling. Induction of diabetes was performed by two I.
Naunyn Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmacol
December 2024
Cytogenetics Laboratory, Department of Zoology, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India.
Amyloid-proteinopathy is observed in type 2 diabetes, where Islet amyloid polypeptide is secreted atypically and impedes cellular homeostasis. The thiazolidinediones family is reported to influence amyloid-beta aggregations. However, research on drug-based stimulation of insulin signaling to alleviate Islet amyloid aggregations is lacking.
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