Patent ID: 7425443

Claim:
A genetic construct for glucose-regulated synthesis of active insulin in a host cell in which insulin is not natively produced, comprising a promoter functional in the host cell; a coding sequence for a human proinsulin, the coding sequence operably connected to the promoter, wherein the human proinsulin encoded by the coding sequence comprises amino acid sequences corresponding to B-C and C-A junctions of native human proinsulin that are cleavable in the host cell; a glucose responsive regulatory module located 5′ of the promoter, the module having at least one glucose inducible regulatory element comprising a pair of CACGTG motifs linked by a five base nucleotide sequence; and an untranslated region not natively associated with the coding sequence for human proinsulin, wherein the untranslated region is located 5′ of the coding sequence and 3′ of the promoter.