Human Biology Protein Production

Produced by cell clusters in the pancreas called the Islets of Langerhans, insulin is a hormone that regulates glucose concentration in the blood. It is a protein synthesised and stored by beta cells, which secrete it in surges responding to changes in glucose levels. (Hardin, Bertoni and Kleinsmith, 2012)
Fig 1. The Pancreas and Insulin
|Source: University of Maryland (2011) | |
| |[pic] |
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| |Source: Techvert.com (2010) |
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|Insulin’s peptide sequence was determined in 1953 by Frederick Sanger and its structure by Dorothy Hodgkin, both Nobel prize winners. Type 1 |
|diabetes is a condition caused by a lack of in beta cells in the pancreas (Hanock, 2010). |

Protein synthesis begins in the nucleus of the human cell, “The term eukaryon means “true nucleus. This means that the very essence of a eukaryotic cell is its membrane bound nucleus.” (Hardin, Bertoni and Kleinsmith, 2012, p.356)

Fig.2 The Nucleus
|Source: King Saud University (2011) |10µm in diameter, the nucleus comprises a double membrane |
| |enclosing one or more nucleolus, surrounded by chromatin. “The |
|The Nuclear Envelope contains and protects the