Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disease that is predominately characterized by hyperglycaemia and dyslipidemia, and improvement of glucose and lipid metabolism disorders is a potent therapeutic strategy against this metabolic disease.

Researchers from Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica ,CAS discovered that Latanoprost, a clinical drug for treating primary open-angle glaucoma and intraocular hypertension, effectively ameliorated glucose and lipid disorders in the two mouse models of type 2 diabetes.

In this study, researchers constructed screening platforms targeting RXRa/PPARg heterodimer and AMPK, and the ‘old drug’ latanoprost was identified from in-house existing drug library with features by inhibiting RXRa/PPARg heterodimer transcription and promoting AMPK phosphorylation.

 Cell-based assays on 3T3-L1 adipocytes and C2C12 myotubes demonstrated that latanoprost could promote glucose uptake, inhibit pre-adipocyte differentiation and regulate the main genes responsible for glucose and lipid metabolism, then the animal model-based assays with db/db and ob/ob mice indicated latanoprost potently decreased the levels of fasting blood glucose, HbA1c, fructosamine (FMN), NEFA and total cholesterol, and effectively improved glucose tolerance and glucose/lipid metabolism-related genes in vivo. Their work strongly highlights the potential of latanoprost in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

This research was performed by WANG Gaihong, associated Prof. CHENJing and others from the research group of Prof. SHEN Xu in SIMM. On September 4^th, the paper has been published online on Diabetologia.

Currently, the related findings have been applied for Chinese patents.

Full text : http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00125-013-3032-8