In type 2 diabetes, the pancreas's β cells stop making insulin because they revert to progenitor cells, rather than because they die, as has been thought.
A team led by Domenico Accili at Columbia University in New York studied mice lacking the Foxo1 gene, which is involved in cell specialization or differentiation, in their β cells. The animals produced fewer β cells and developed high blood-sugar levels. Moreover, the authors found that the β cells reverted back to endocrine progenitor cells, which are unable to make insulin. Mice in two other models of diabetes also produced such de-differentiated β cells.
Turning these stem cells back into β cells could be a way to treat type 2 diabetes, the authors suggest.
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Cells turn back clock in diabetes. Nature 489, 476 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/489476b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/489476b
