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Poisonous lizard may aid diabetes patients
2006-01-27
Lizard may aid diabetes patients
By Adam Jones
TUSCALOOSA NEW
STUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Gila monsters have a unique protein in their venom that could eventually help treat diabetes in humans. But researchers are still studying the lizards to find out how the protein works.
"By understanding how this protein acts in this native organism, you can understand what more it would do in other animals," said researcher Carol Christel, while holding one of the lizards in her hands.
Christel, a doctoral student at Arizona State University, hopes to write her dissertation on the digestive system of the United States' only poisonous lizard. She and Assistant Professor Dale Denardo were in Tuscaloosa this week to study with University of Alabama biology professor Stephen Secor, an expert on reptile digestion.
Christel brought 18 of the lizards, found mostly in the southwestern states and northern Mexico, to the University of Alabama so Secor could study them. The lizard is a rare find in the wild.
"We had the Gila monsters, and he had the expertise, so we just brought them together," Christel said.
Denardo said the lizards are obtained when human development encroaches on their territory and they become a nuisance. Gila monsters are not able to adapt to new surroundings and perish soon after being moved to a new habitat, even just a few miles away, he said.
Rather than allowing them to be killed, ASU takes them for research.
Gila monsters are one of only two poisonous lizards in the world. The other is the Mexican beaded lizard, similar to a Gila monster.
Their venom is not as potent to humans as snake venom, but for the Gila's prey -- litters of rodents or rabbits -- it's enough. Gilas also eat bird eggs.
Unlike humans, who eat at least twice a day, Gila monsters feast two or three times each year, Secor said. They then survive by storing fat in their tails.
The protein, exendin-4, helps maintain and control insulin and glucose in the lizard during the long periods between meals. In humans, researchers found the protein lasts longer than other diabetes drugs, and the pharmaceutical company Amylin is developing an exendin-based drug.
The lizard can make the protein by gnawing on anything but fortunately for the Gila monster, the protein can also be made synthetically.
The research at the University of Alabama is not geared toward creating a patent or drug, but toward further understanding how the protein works in the lizard.
This news is brought
to you by Hong Kong Reptile & Amphibian Society;
Source from original journalist.
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