Stronger Together

Just like we rely on help from our friends to keep us from going astray, elements in the body rely on those around them to help do their jobs and not wander into trouble. eIF5A is a translation factor – involved in the creation of proteins from DNA – pivotal to both healthy development and cancer, that’s helped when a companion molecule called DHPS modifies it. A new study has examined this relationship in obese mice and found that this change enables eIF5A to prompt the expansion of β cells in the pancreas – cells that produce insulin (green in the pancreas pictured). When the assistance of DHPS was removed, eIF5A couldn’t support β-cell growth, and diabetes developed due to a lack of sugar-managing insulin. This suggests the interaction between DHPS and eIF5A helps prevent diabetes in vulnerable individuals – another facet of an elegant relationship.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Esther M. Levasseur, Kentaro Yamada and Annie R. Piñeros, and colleagues
• Center for Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA
• Image reprinted with permission from the AAAS - the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Published in Science Signaling, December 2019