OBJECTIVE beta-Cell mass declines progressively during the course of diabetes, and various antidiabetic treatment regimens have been suggested to modulate beta-cell mass. However, imaging methods allowing the monitoring of changes in beta-cell mass in vivo have not yet become available. We address whether pancreatic beta-cell area can be assessed by functional test of insulin secretion in human...

All pancreatic endocrine cell types arise from a common endocrine precursor cell population, yet the molecular mechanisms that establish and maintain the unique gene expression programs of each endocrine cell lineage have remained largely elusive. Such knowledge would improve our ability to correctly program or reprogram cells to adopt specific endocrine fates. Here, we show that the transcript...

Beta cell failure is a central feature of type 2 diabetes (T2D), but the molecular underpinnings of the process remain only partly understood. It has been suggested that beta cell failure in T2D involves massive cell death. Other studies ascribe beta cell failure to cell exhaustion, due to chronic oxidative or endoplasmic reticulum stress leading to cellular dysfunction. More recently it was pr...

OBJECTIVE Little is known about the capacity, mechanisms, or timing of growth in beta-cell mass in humans. We sought to establish if the predominant expansion of beta-cell mass in humans occurs in early childhood and if, as in rodents, this coincides with relatively abundant beta-cell replication. We also sought to establish if there is a secondary growth in beta-cell mass coincident with the a...

Sickle cell disease is an autosomal recessive hematological disorder resulting from a missense point mutation in the beta chain of haemoglobin molecule. This article reports case homozygous sickle adult patient with long-standing history non-healing ulcer

Adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), a tumor suppressor commonly mutated in cancer, is a cytoskeletal organizer for cell migration and a scaffold for GSK3 beta/CKI-mediated phosphorylation and degradation of the Wnt effector beta-catenin. It remains unclear whether these different APC functions are coupled, or independently regulated and localized. In primary endothelial cells, we show that GSK3 b...

The oscillatory insulin release is fundamental to normal glycemic control. The basis of the oscillation is the intercellular coupling and bursting synchronization of beta cells in each islet. The functional role of islet beta cell mass organization with respect to its oscillatory bursting is not well understood. This is of special interest in view of the recent finding of islet cytoarchitectura...

Transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) exerts profound inhibitory effects on a number of cell types, including normal B- and T-lymphocytes. In contrast, we have found a number of lymphoid tumor cell lines to be insensitive to the antiproliferative effects of TGF-beta 1 or TGF-beta 2. Binding and cross-linking with radioiodinated TGF-beta 1 demonstrated either low or absent expression of all...