The cytoskeleton and insulin secretion

Abstract

One of the central, unresolved problems in our understanding of insulin secretion is the way in which stimulus recognition and its associated metabolic events are translated into the mechanical processes of insulin-storage granule movement and extrusion from the cells by exocytosis. In the present article we have examined the structural organization of the B-cell cytoskeleton in detail and have reviewed how drugs that affect the cytoskeleton alter insulin secretion. Available information about the interactions of tubulin, actin, myosin, and actomyosin with insulin-secretory granules is summarized, and a tentative model is proposed to explain how stimulus-effector system coupling might be achieved.