In islets isolated from rodent models of diabetes characterized by reduced secretion and content of insulin, VAMP2 and SNAP25 protein is decreased (Nagamatsu et al. 1999; Zhang et al. 2002), which is supportive for the hypothesis that upregulation of the expression of these proteins contributes to the elevated exocytosis we observed after glucotoxic culture. This evidence concerns the gene VAMP2 and diabetes mellitus.