Month Long Diabetes Control Possible with New Injection

저자：   업로드：2017-06-08  조회수：

    To control their blood sugar levels, people with type 2 diabetes constantly need to rely on medication, but it's a tricky condition to manage, especially if you need daily insulin shots.

    The daily or once-weekly insulin shot, necessary for the control of type 2 diabetes, could be replaced by a twice- or even once-a-month shot. A new, longer-lasting injectable formulation has been developed that combines a familiar diabetes-control molecule, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP1), with a heat-sensitive elastin-like polypeptide (ELP). Once a solution containing the GLP1–ELP combo passes through a standard needle and penetrates the skin, it reacts to body heat, forming a biodegradable gel-like “depot” that slowly releases the drug as it dissolves.

    The novel drug-delivery mechanism was developed by scientists based at Duke University, who assert that it could be used to “enhance therapeutic outcomes by eliminating peak-and-valley pharmacokinetics and improving overall safety and tolerability.” The scientists, led by Ashutosh Chilkoti, Ph.D., chair of the department of biomedical engineering at Duke, suggest that their work could be “broadly applicable”; that is, it could improve the pharmacological performance of peptides and protein therapeutics besides GLP1.

    Details of the work appeared June 5 in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering, in an article entitled “One-Week Glucose Control via Zero-Order Release Kinetics from an Injectable Depot of Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Fused to a Thermosensitive Biopolymer.” The “one week” indicated in the title refers to the drug depot’s performance in mice. Glucose control, the scientists found, was more durable in rhesus monkeys, and even longer glucose control, the scientists suggested, could be achieved in humans, since humans have slower metabolisms than mice or monkeys.

    “A subcutaneous depot formed after a single injection of GLP1 recombinantly fused to a thermosensitive elastin-like polypeptide results in zero-order release kinetics and circulation times of up to 10 days in mice and 17 days in monkeys,” the authors of the article indicated. “The optimized pharmacokinetics lead to 10 days of glycaemic control in three different mouse models of diabetes, as well as the reduction of glycosylated haemoglobin levels and weight gain in ob/ob mice treated once weekly for 8 weeks.”

    Many current treatments for type 2 diabetes use GLP1, a signaling molecule that causes the pancreas to release insulin to control blood sugar. However, this peptide has a short half-life and is cleared from the body quickly.

    To make treatments last longer, researchers have previously fused G

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