We carried out a project dealing with type 2 diabetes – a common disease in the entire world, which, despite good pharmacological tools, lacks a perfect cure.
In our study, we compared three different such drugs, from two different sub-families, to see if there is any difference in the Ca2+–raising effect. We investigated the difference between the substances using Single Cell Ratiometric Fluorescence Microscopy, and found that there is a difference within one sub-family of sulfonylureas, but also between the two different sub-families; they raise the Ca2+levels inside the β-cells in different amounts. Thereby, we now know there is a difference between the different drugs, which provides the base for further studies on this area; are the different substances operating through different mechanisms, other than the common one? With further studies on this, more efficient diabetes drugs may someday be developed thanks to a deeper understanding on this very topic.
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