The objective of this application is to determine the cellular distribution of Golli protein in human pancreatic islets. Golli (gene expressed in oligodendrocyte lineage) is an alternatively spliced product of myelin basic protein (MBP) gene featured by the presence of a unique Golli domain which contains a 133-amino-acid sequence fused in the N-terminal of classic MBP. The Golli peptide share 79% homology between the human and the mouse. Our previous works in mouse have identified that Golli protein serves as an important regulator of Ca2+ release –activated Ca2+ (CRAC) channel in T lymphocytes and voltage-dependent calcium channel (VDCC) in oligodendrocytes and neurons. This application will start from our original findings in mice that: Golli protein is expressed in β cells of mouse Langerhans islet and plays a critical role in insulin secretion. We propose here to investigate cellular distribution of Golli protein in human pancreas (both normal and type-1 and -2 diabetic) tissues, aim to build up a direct correlation of our findings of Golli in rodents to the type-1 and type-2 diabetes in human.
