Chronology of endocrine differentiation and beta-cell neogenesis [Review]

[摘要] References(36)Cited-By(1)Diabetes is a chronic and incurable disease, which results from absolute or relative insulin insufficiency.Therefore, pancreatic beta cells, which are the only type of cell that expresses insulin, is considered to be a potential target for the cure of diabetes.Although the findings regarding beta-cell neogenesis during pancreas development have been exploited to induce insulin-producing cells from non-beta cells, there are still many hurdles towards generating fully functional beta cells that can produce high levels of insulin and respond to physiological signals.To overcome these problems, a solid understanding of pancreas development and beta-cell formation is required, and several mouse models have been developed to reveal the unique features of each endocrine cell type at distinct developmental time points.Here I review our understanding of pancreas development and endocrine differentiation focusing on recent progresses in improving temporal cell labeling in vivo.

[学科分类] 内分泌与代谢学

[关键词] Endocrine progenitor;Beta cell neogenesis;Endocrine differentiation