Know your insulin Shantanu Sen 1 , Rafat Ali 1 , Harminder Singh 1 , Akanksha Onkar 2 , Pratibha Bhadauriya 2 , Subramaniam Ganesh 2 , Sandeep Verma 1 1 Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India, 2 Department of Biological Sciences & Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India The issue of insulin's susceptibility to heat remains a concern, particularly in regions such as certain commonwealth countries as well as other parts of the world, where high temperatures prevail, and refrigeration facilities are not readily available. 1 Unintentional purchase of improperly stored fibrillated insulin dosages causes financial losses and life-threatening risks. Identifying this fibrillated insulin is challenging due to its visible similarity to fresh insulin. The prefibrillar species or oligomers that exist in the initial stages of insulin aggregation are particularly toxic, causing cytotoxicity and posing severe pathophysiological conditions. Thus, it is crucial to monitor the presence of these prefibrillar populations, allowing consumers to check their insulin quality right before injecting. Real-time monitoring of insulin dosage by the consumers themselves will not only protect them from injection-mediated amyloidosis but will also eliminate their risk of hyperglycemic shock due to an unexpectedly lower insulin dosage. Here, we present the synthesis of a chemically modified human insulin that can be monitored for it's fibrillation due to inbuilt aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property. 2,3 A notable bathochromic shift in fluorescence spectra is observed as a significant visual transition from cyan-coloured fresh insulin to green-coloured fibrillated insulin that can be observed by UV-lamp irradiation. The presence of the conjugated fluorescent moiety and the change in its spatial arrangement in fresh with respect to the aggregated state influences the insulin’s modulated photophysical properties. The changed protein framework and the resulting effect on insulin’s fluorescence property during aggregation are correlated with the shift in its fluorescence emission spectra. This advancement offers users the freedom to personally investigate the quality of their insulin dosages and empowers them to make informed decisions about their diabetes management. This approach holds tremendous potential for safeguarding patients’ health and preventing other life-threatening complications. It offers a clear and uncomplicated method, which is also highly sensitive, for creating a novel insulin with self-quality indications. This invention presents an alternative approach for visually assessing the insulin quality, thereby preventing unnecessary disposal of insulin, and promoting its cost-effective worldwide distribution.
References 1. ChemBioChem. 2022 , 23 , e202100678. 2. Indian Patent Application No. 202311030590, 2023. 3. Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry . 2023, doi.org/10.1039/D3OB01038D.
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