Glucose-stimulated insulin secretion: the hierarchy of its multiple cellular and subcellular mechanisms

Glucose-stimulated insulin secretion is ensured by multiple molecular, cellular and tissue events. In this issue of Diabetologia, Low et al (DOI: 10.1007/s00125-013-3019-5) have taken an important new step towards understanding the hierarchical organisation of these events, by monitoring in vitro the individual exocytosis of multiple beta cells within intact mouse islets. The authors show that glucose stimulation markedly increases the number of exocytotic events per cell and, to a lesser extent, the number of beta cells contributing to this event. In this commentary we discuss these novel observations and propose that metabolic and electrical coupling of islet beta cells is responsible for a more homogeneous glucose-induced secretory response of cells in an intact islet as compared with isolated beta cells.