bees and insulin

[anaelena]

how do the bees function without a pancreas?

[MrMistery]

bees are insects, order Hymenoptera. like all insects, they posses no hepatopancreas and no continous blood vessels- they have an open and simple circulatory sistem. anyway, as you probably know, the hepatopancreas in invertebrates does not have an endocrin role as the pancreas does in vertebrates.
Unfortunately i am nowhere near an entomologist so i can only speculate on the subject: since insects have an open circulatory sistem the exchange between cells and hemolimph takes place very slowly, much slower than in vertebrates. maybe because of this they do not need insulin or an insulin like hormone. also, they may posses a different protein than the GLUT2 permease which does not require help. Remember that the GLUT1 permease for glucose humans have in their brain keeps it's speed constant regardless of the amount of insulin present.

Of course, i may be totally wrong....

[sachin]

They do not have liver.......... glycogen............. and Dibetes problem tooo....

[anaelena]

sachin please explain more!!!

i didn't study biology not at all- i am only a physics teacher.

not a liver i was told. but something which is a liver plus a pancreas too?
and so they have not glycogen?
not any chance for diabetes in bees?

i am hungry!!! please tell me more!!!!

[sachin]

Bees are insects they do not have High amounts of stored gucose in the form of Glycogen, glucose or any how; Since they do not posses Liver.

They store their reserve fod in the form of Fats..

small amount of glucose is there in there Heamolymph(Insect Blood) and all over requirement of glucose is satisfied by breaking fat in to saccharides....

So no chance to have diabetes.....

but over weight may become problem

[anaelena]

sachin thanks.
i need to read and digest all of these. :d
need help! any idea will be very welcome!

[MrMistery]

Haha i can only imagine a fat bee...
Yeah, but as i said the bee doesn't have that problem because of a much slower metabolism.. And it is smaller too...

[anaelena]

MrMistery i can, like you, only imagine the fat bee... but i can also see, daily, my child with diabetes, injecting insulin many times daily and even more "injections" cause she has to check her blood glucose.

sorry for the affective change... back to bees and their way of being, without diabetes!

people give me hints to learn about bees!!!

[sachin]

MrMistery i can, like you, only imagine the fat bee... but i can also see, daily, my child with diabetes, injecting insulin many times daily and even more "injections" cause she has to check her blood glucose.

Sorry for that..

sorry for the affective change... back to bees and their way of being, without diabetes!

people give me hints to learn about bees!!!

Welome.....

[sdekivit]

Bees are insects they do not have High amounts of stored gucose in the form of Glycogen, glucose or any how; Since they do not posses Liver.

i just want to mention that the liver is not the major glycogen store in the vertebrate body --> the major glycogen storage takes place in the muscles.

--> the only important feature of the liver in energy metabolism of glucose is that it can release glucose, because it contains the enzyme glucose-6-phosphatase.

What i also know is that in for example butterflies for energy metabolism an adapted form of the lipoprotein system is present, which transports diacylglycerols through the hemolymph out of the fat body towards the flying muscles.