Go to JCI Insight
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • By specialty
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Gastroenterology
    • Immunology
    • Metabolism
    • Nephrology
    • Neuroscience
    • Oncology
    • Pulmonology
    • Vascular biology
    • All ...
  • Videos
    • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
    • Video Abstracts
  • Reviews
    • View all reviews ...
    • Pancreatic Cancer (Jul 2025)
    • Complement Biology and Therapeutics (May 2025)
    • Evolving insights into MASLD and MASH pathogenesis and treatment (Apr 2025)
    • Microbiome in Health and Disease (Feb 2025)
    • Substance Use Disorders (Oct 2024)
    • Clonal Hematopoiesis (Oct 2024)
    • Sex Differences in Medicine (Sep 2024)
    • View all review series ...
  • Viewpoint
  • Collections
    • In-Press Preview
    • Clinical Research and Public Health
    • Research Letters
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Editorials
    • Commentaries
    • Editor's notes
    • Reviews
    • Viewpoints
    • 100th anniversary
    • Top read articles

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Specialties
  • Reviews
  • Review series
  • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
  • Video Abstracts
  • In-Press Preview
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Research Letters
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Editorials
  • Commentaries
  • Editor's notes
  • Reviews
  • Viewpoints
  • 100th anniversary
  • Top read articles
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact
SORCS1 is necessary for normal insulin secretory granule biogenesis in metabolically stressed β cells
Melkam A. Kebede, … , Anjon Audhya, Alan D. Attie
Melkam A. Kebede, … , Anjon Audhya, Alan D. Attie
Published August 26, 2014
Citation Information: J Clin Invest. 2014;124(10):4240-4256. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI74072.
View: Text | PDF
Research Article Endocrinology

SORCS1 is necessary for normal insulin secretory granule biogenesis in metabolically stressed β cells

  • Text
  • PDF
Abstract

We previously positionally cloned Sorcs1 as a diabetes quantitative trait locus. Sorcs1 belongs to the Vacuolar protein sorting-10 (Vps10) gene family. In yeast, Vps10 transports enzymes from the trans-Golgi network (TGN) to the vacuole. Whole-body Sorcs1 KO mice, when made obese with the leptinob mutation (ob/ob), developed diabetes. β Cells from these mice had a severe deficiency of secretory granules (SGs) and insulin. Interestingly, a single secretagogue challenge failed to consistently elicit an insulin secretory dysfunction. However, multiple challenges of the Sorcs1 KO ob/ob islets consistently revealed an insulin secretion defect. The luminal domain of SORCS1 (Lum-Sorcs1), when expressed in a β cell line, acted as a dominant-negative, leading to SG and insulin deficiency. Using syncollin-dsRed5TIMER adenovirus, we found that the loss of Sorcs1 function greatly impairs the rapid replenishment of SGs following secretagogue challenge. Chronic exposure of islets from lean Sorcs1 KO mice to high glucose and palmitate depleted insulin content and evoked an insulin secretion defect. Thus, in metabolically stressed mice, Sorcs1 is important for SG replenishment, and under chronic challenge by insulin secretagogues, loss of Sorcs1 leads to diabetes. Overexpression of full-length SORCS1 led to a 2-fold increase in SG content, suggesting that SORCS1 is sufficient to promote SG biogenesis.

Authors

Melkam A. Kebede, Angie T. Oler, Trillian Gregg, Allison J. Balloon, Adam Johnson, Kelly Mitok, Mary Rabaglia, Kathryn Schueler, Donald Stapleton, Candice Thorstenson, Lindsay Wrighton, Brendan J. Floyd, Oliver Richards, Summer Raines, Kevin Eliceiri, Nabil G. Seidah, Christopher Rhodes, Mark P. Keller, Joshua L. Coon, Anjon Audhya, Alan D. Attie

×

Figure 2

Deletion of Sorcs1 leads to severe depletion of islet insulin content and mature secretory granules (SGs).

Options: View larger image (or click on image) Download as PowerPoint
Deletion of Sorcs1 leads to severe depletion of islet insulin content an...
(A–D) Brightfield illumination (A), MALDI/TOF spectra (B), dithizone staining (C), and β cell ultrastructure (D) of isolated B6 ob/ob and Sorcs1 KO ob/ob islets. (E) Quantification of SGs per β cell cytoplasm from B6 ob/ob and Sorcs1 KO ob/ob β cells. (F) Brightfield images after dithizone staining of islets from nondiabetic and diabetic B6 ob/ob and Sorcs1 KO ob/ob mice. Fasting plasma glucose (mg/dl) and insulin (ng/ml) of the mice are shown as glucose/insulin. (G) Double staining of insulin (red) and glucagon (green) of isolated B6 ob/ob and Sorcs1 KO ob/ob islets. Granule quantification was carried out from electron microscopy images from 3 mice per genotype and 20 β cell fields per mouse. Data are represented as mean ± SEM. EG, empty granules; IAPP, islet-amyloid polypeptide; IG, immature granules; MSG, mature secretory granules; PP, pancreatic polypeptide.

Copyright © 2025 American Society for Clinical Investigation
ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)

Sign up for email alerts