Insulin signal transduction pathway (also known as glucose homeostasis) also exhibits oscillatory behavior. On a pathological basis, this topic is crucial to understanding certain disorders in the body such as diabetes, hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. The functioning of a signal transduction pathway is based on extra-cellular signaling that in turn creates a response which causes other subsequent responses, hence creating a chain reaction, or cascade. During the course of signaling, the cell uses each response for accomplishing some kind of a purpose along the way. Insulin secretion mechanism is a common example of signal transduction pathway mechanism. Insulin is produced by the pancreas in a
Insulin blood which are unaffected by, and unresponsive to the concentration of glucose in the blood. Insulin is still secreted into the blood in response to the blood glucose. As a result, the insulin levels, even when the blood sugar level is normal, are much higher than they are in healthy persons. The human insulin protein is composed of 51 amino acids, and has a molecular mass of 5808 Da. It is a dimer of an A-chain and a B-chain, which are linked together by disulfide bonds. Insulin's structure varies slightly between species of animals. Insulin from animal sources differs somewhat