Diabetes is a disease characterized by impaired proteostasis

Abstract

The clinical feature of diabetes mellitus is unregulated hyperglycemia and impaired pancreatic insulin secretion. Diabetes is a systemic disease involving the pancreatic islet cell that produces insulin, and also the kidney, and eventual microvascular disease that has an impact on the heart and the brain. Opie [1] described hyalinization of the pancreatic islet cells prior to the discovery of insulin, and Kimmelstein and Wilson [2] observed hyalinization of the kidney glomeruli, also a hallmark of diabetic nephropathy, to which afferent arteriolar thickening (arteriolar nephrosclerosis) was later added. It can also be said that the hyalinization of the pancreatic beta cell and the kidneys is in either case amyloid deposit.