Daijiworld Media Network – Mumbai

Mumbai, Jul 1: In a significant medical breakthrough, researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay have discovered that a structural protein called collagen I, commonly found in the human body, may aggravate Type 2 diabetes by accelerating the formation of harmful clumps of a hormone called amylin in the pancreas.

Type 2 diabetes, marked by impaired insulin function, also involves the hormone amylin, which is secreted alongside insulin. While insulin regulates blood sugar levels, an excess of amylin tends to misfold and form sticky clumps, damaging the insulin-producing β-cells in the pancreas.

The IIT Bombay research team found that in diabetic tissue, collagen I acts as a scaffold that enhances the clumping of amylin, making the clusters more toxic and harder for the body to eliminate. This interaction, they say, could be a missing piece in understanding how diabetes progresses and why certain therapies underperform.

To reach these findings, the team employed cutting-edge techniques such as surface plasmon resonance, atomic force microscopy, thioflavin T fluorescence, and NMR spectroscopy to trace how tightly amylin binds with collagen and how these harmful clusters form. Computer simulations, along with tests on diabetic mice and human tissue samples, further strengthened their findings.

In lab-grown β-cells, the presence of both collagen and amylin was found to increase cell stress, cause higher death rates, and reduce insulin output, indicating the damaging synergy between the two.

Researchers say the study underscores the critical role of the cell’s surrounding environment in diabetes, not just internal cell mechanisms. The team is now focused on developing models using cryo-electron microscopy and exploring 3D scaffolds to support pancreatic tissue repair.

The research was funded by the Wadhwani Research Centre for Bioengineering at IIT Bombay and national bodies such as the Department of Biotechnology.