DMMC Course: MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY IN ACTION

1110-1230 Wednesday 14 December 2005. UCD Conway Institute Lecture Theatre

Role of small GTPases in the regulation of vesicle trafficking: relevance to insulin release and glut4-vesicle translocation in typeII diabetes
Dr Bernard Allan (UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular & Biomedical Research)

TypeII diabetes is characterised by defects in insulin-stimulated glucose uptake into skeletal muscle and insulin release from the pancreas. Both of these are vesicle trafficking mediated events which are controlled by members of the Ras superfamily of low molecular weight GTPases. This lecture will provide a detailed overview of the role of Rab proteins and coat GTPases in the molecular mechanisms underlying vesicle formation, the packaging of cargo proteins and targetting of vesicles to destination membranes. These events will be discussed in the context of the molecular mechanisms underlying glucose homeostasis and the development of insulin resistance and typeII diabetes.