Dr. Wenbiao CHEN, Associate Professor from Vanderbilt University in the US, was invited to visit IHB on November 21, 2016.

Dr. Wenbiao CHEN, Associate Professor from Vanderbilt University in the US, was invited to visit Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences  (IHB) on November 21, 2016. During his visit, he gave an oral presentation with the title of “Molecular Mechanisms of β-Cell Decompensation and α-Cell Hyperplasia in Zebrafish”.  

Dr. Chen used zebrafish as a model to study “Molecular Mechanisms of metabolic stress-induced β-Cell death” and “Molecular Mechanisms of α-Cell Hyperplasia”. The balance of blood glucose is a requisition to maintain internal environment homeostasis. In human, imbalance of blood glucose may intrigue some diseases, in which diabetes has a high mobility rate and may cause severe damage. The producing and utilizing of blood glucose are regulated by hormones like the insulin and glucagon, excreted by pancreas islet β cell and α cell respecitively.  

His team found similar biological events of β-Cell mass compensation and decompensation as in mammalian. On one hand, compensatory neogenesis of β-Cell is induced by releasing of FGF1 under Over-nutrition.  On the other hand, β-Cell decompensation happened with islet inflammation and macrophage infiltration. Knocking-out of glucagon receptor causes α-Cell hyperplasia. Inhibiting the activity of glucagon receptor resulted in hyperaminoacidemia.