Type 2 diabetes mellitus and protein-tyrosine phosphatase 1b

Diabetes is one of the common metabolic diseases, mainly divided into two types, type 1 diabetes mellitus and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Insulin resistance is the main performance of type 2 diabetes mellitus which are relative to some gene mutation, genetics, obesity and so on. Protein-tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B) plays an important role as a negative regulator in insulin signaling pathways that are implicated in metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. Many evidences from clinical and basical reseach shows that the high expression of PTP1B induces insulin resistance and PTP1B is an effective target for the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. In this review, we briefly introduce composition of PTP1B, and then examine the role of PTP1B in insulin signaling of type 2 diabets mellitus. Finally, we highlight the recent research progress of PTP1B inhibitors used in therapy of type 2 diabetes mellitus.