Close Encounters of Fifth Kind

Close Encounters of Fifth Kind

Michael DeRan and Amedeo Vetere, Chemical Biology and Therapeutics Science, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Broad Institute

Using an assay to detect protein-protein interaction (red dots) we identified novel ion channel partners of a cytoplasmic protein in pancreatic beta cells. The cytoplasmic protein we are studying is usually associated with a specific subset of ion channels in neurons but its role and interactome was never studied in pancreatic beta cells. For the first time we were able to show that this cytoplasmic protein is present in beta cell and interacts with a subset of ion channels different from those described in neurons.