Rui Wu

Mr. Rui Wu

Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

5Years (2022-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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25 March 2022 in Biomedicines
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
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RWRui Wu
Rui Wu
AKAlexandros Karagiannopoulos
Alexandros Karagiannopoulos
LELena Eliasson
Lena Eliasson
ERErik Renström
Erik Renström
CLCheng Luan
Cheng Luan
Enming ZhangEnming Zhang
Enming Zhang
Impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) are high-risk factors of diabetes development and may be caused by defective insulin secretion in pancreatic beta-cells. Glucose-stimulated insulin secretion is mediated by voltage-gated Ca2+ (CaV) channels in which the gamma-4 subunit (CaVγ4) is required for the beta-cell to maintain its differentiated state. We here aim to explore the involvement of CaVγ4 in controlling glucose homeostasis by employing the CaVγ4−/− mice to study in vivo glucose-metabolism-related phenotypes and glucose-stimulated insulin secretion, and to investigate the underlying mechanisms. We show that CaVγ4−/− mice exhibit perturbed glucose homeostasis, including IFG and IGT. Glucose-stimulated insulin secretion is blunted in CaVγ4−/− mouse islets. Remarkably, CaVγ4 deletion results in reduced expression of the transcription factor essential for beta-cell maturation, MafA, on both mRNA and protein levels in islets from human donors and CaVγ4−/− mice, as well as in INS-1 832/13 cells. Moreover, we prove that CaMKII is responsible for mediating this regulatory pathway linked between CaVγ4 and MafA, which is further confirmed by human islet RNA-seq data. We demonstrate that CaVγ4 is a key player in preserving normal blood glucose homeostasis, which sheds light on CaVγ4 as a novel target for the treatment of prediabetes through correcting the impaired metabolic status.