Research Article
Sulfonylureas can Stimulate Insulin Release by Flip-Flop across Phospholipid Membranes
Jamal Alruwaili*Department of Medical Laboratory Technology, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, Northern Border University, Arar-91431, Saudi Arabia
- Corresponding Author:
- Jamal Alruwaili
Department of Medical Laboratory
Technology, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences
Northern Border University, P.O. Box 1321
Northern Border 91431, Saudi Arabia
Tel: +966535186118
E-mail: jamalalruwaili786@gmail.com
Received date: November 30, 2015; Accepted date: January 28, 2016; Published date: February 08, 2016
Citation: Alruwaili J (2016) Sulfonylureas can Stimulate Insulin Release by Flip-Flop across Phospholipid Membranes. J Biotechnol Biomater 6:218. doi:10.4172/2155-952X.1000218
Copyright: © 2016 Alruwaili J. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The design of new drugs and drug-delivery systems requires insight about how a drug interacts with the phospholipid bilayer. Sulfonylureas are used to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus because they stimulate insulin secretion from pancreatic β-cells. Two generations of Sulfonylurea drugs have been marketed to treat type II diabetes mellitus. Tolbutamide was chosen to represent the first generation of these drugs, whereas Glibenclamide was from the second generation. This study investigated how the Sulfonylureas cross the phospholipid membrane and it found that these drugs are transported by non-energy dependent flip-flop mechanism. A u-shaped conformation for both Tolbutamide and Glibenclamide is being proposed to explain the binding of these drugs to the phospholipid membrane.