Important advances have been made in the areas of diabetes and adipose cell research in recent years, making conferences on these topics extremely timely. These concurrent meetings will be multidisciplinary, bringing together investigators from academia and industry representing cell biology, molecular biology, immunology and biochemistry, and the clinical disciplines of endocrinology and metabolism. The prime objective is to present new findings that will stimulate cross- fertilization among basic and clinical investigators sharing common interests in hormone secretion and signaling and mechanisms of human diseases. Diabetes mellitus is a disease characterized by hyperglycemia, unknown molecular defects that impair beta cell insulin secretion and peripheral insulin responsiveness. Dramatic progress in cell and molecular biology research has revealed a number of related components and mechanisms underlying key processes in Type II diabetes syndromes. Common cellular signaling elements that control disease and insulin action in liver, muscle and fat include: tyrosine kinases; GTP- binding proteins such as ras; and protein serine/threonine kinase cascades. Control of insulin secretion in beta cells involves many of these same components. The adipose cell and its parent adipose tissue represent unique experimental systems in which to understand the integration of various signaling pathways involved in the regulation of differentiation and development. Adipose cells are responsive to a remarkably wide range of hormones which elicit a host of well characterized responses, including cell/tissue growth and development, substrate transport, lipogenesis, lipolysis, and protein trafficking and secretion. Much of the characterization of the intracellular insulin signaling system and its disruption in diabetes has been worked out in adipose cells, due to the insulin responsiveness of the cells and the ease of obtaining an culturing them from both patients and experimental animals. Recent advances have highlighted the active role the adipose tissue plays in the altered metabolism of diabetes as well as the impact of hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia on cellular insulin action in the fat cell. Molecular mechanisms involved in various signaling pathways include G-protein regulated effector systems such as adenylyl cyclase and phospholipases, receptor-associated and cytosolic tyrosine kinases and phosphatases. Since there are important relationships between: 1) diabetes and obesity; and 2) signaling pathways involved in immune cell responses, insulin secretion and action, and adipose cell regulation, this meeting should provide a unique scientific form for basic and clinical investigators involved in studies of hormone action and secretion.
