Expression microarray analysis of human pancreatic islets reveals CD59 function

Pancreatic islets are central in type 2-diabetes development, which coincides with increased activity of innate immunity. Intriguingly, human pancreatic islets express many complement genes. The most highly expressed gene was the complement inhibitor CD59 that is GPI anchored to the cell membrane, which unexpectedly was found in high amounts intracellularly in beta cells. Silencing of CD59 strongly suppressed insulin secretion. Importantly, this suppression was unrelated to established CD59 functions, but rather depletion of intracellular CD59. Imaging experiments identified a distal site of inhibition in the exocytotic pathway, but prior to emptying of the insulin granules. Proximity Ligation Assays pin-pointed the mechanism to impaired turnover of exocytosis-regulating SNARE-proteins and CD59 was detected in complex with VAMP2 and syntaxin. CD59 was downregulated by 24-h glucose incubations in human islets, rat cell lines and in islets from three rodent diabetes models. Islets from cadaver donors were provided by the Nordic Islet Transplantation Programme (www.nordicislets.org), Uppsala University. The microarrays were performed using GeneChip® Human Gene 1.0 ST whole transcript according to Affymetrix standard protocol.