Diabetes is a disease that affects millions of Americans every day. Over the years, diabetes has become more and more prevalent in the United States. Ongoing research is being carried out to gain valuable knowledge about the disease and for the development of treatments for the disease. There are several different causes of diabetes, but each involves contact with insulin and the insulin receptor at some level, since insulin and the insulin receptor are involved in the pathway that regulates insulin levels. glucose in the body. The insulin/insulin receptor pathway is essential for maintaining homeostasis in the body. As more information is gathered about the structure of the insulin receptor and how it works, a better understanding of diabetes treatments may eventually be unlocked. Insulin Receptor Gene The insulin receptor has several defined exons that encode various regions of the protein and knowledge of this information begins to provide insight into the structure of the insulin receptor. Formation of the insulin receptor begins with the proteolytic cleavage of the insulin receptor zymogen (Seino et al., 1989). The insulin receptor is a homodimeric protein with α2β2 subunits (Huang et al., 2004). After cDNA analysis, it was found that eleven exons constitute the α subunit and 11 exons constitute the β subunit (Seino et al., 1989). These exons lead to the specific features that the insulin receptor displays in its structure. General Structure There is a plethora of research on the structure of the insulin receptor because it has many vital functions in the body and because of its function or lack of function in a disease as prevalent as diabetes. As mentioned previously, the insulin receptor is a homodimeric protein containing two α and two...... middle of paper ...... MC How insulin engages its primary binding site on the insulin receptor 'insulin. Nature, 493: 241-248 (2013) Olefsky, J. The insulin receptor: a multifunctional protein. Diabetes, 39: 1009-1016 (1990) Schaffer, L.; A model of insulin binding to the insulin receptor. European Journal of Biochemistry, 221: 1127-1132 (1994) Seino, S.; Seino, M.; Nishi, S.; Bell, G. Structure of the human insulin receptor gene and characterization of its promoter. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 86: 114-118 (1989) Smith, BJ; Huang, K.; Kong, G.; Chan, SJ; Nakagawa, S.; Menting, J.G.; Hu, S.; Whittaker, J.; Steiner, D.F.; Katsoyannis, PG Structural resolution of a tandem hormone-binding element in the insulin receptor and its implications for peptide agonist design. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(15): 6771-6776 (2010)