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Nature Medicine 9, 504 - 505 (2003)
doi:10.1038/nm0503-504
Organ alchemy: producing insulin in the liver
Kenneth S. Polonsky1 & Graeme I. Bell2
- Department of Internal Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Correspondence to: Kenneth S. Polonsky1 e-mail: polonsky@im.wustl.edu
Abstract
Expressing pancreatic transcription factors in the liver drives the formation of insulin-producing cells and normalizes blood glucose levels in a mouse model of diabetes (pages 596–603).
The liver and the pancreas arise from the gut endoderm during embryogenesis. This common ancestry has spurred interest in redirecting the fate of cells in the adult liver to function as pancreatic cells, in particular the insulin-secreting 
-cells critical for maintainance of normal blood glucose levels and prevention of diabetes.
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