Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) regulates energy intake, gastrointestinal motility, and nutrient disposal. The relative importance of the islet beta-cell for GLP-1 actions remains unclear. We determined the role of the islet beta-cell and the pancreatic duodenal homeobox-1 (Pdx1) transcription factor for GLP-1 receptor (GLP-1R)-dependent actions through analysis of mice with beta-cell-specific ...

OBJECTIVE Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and gastrin promote pancreatic beta-cell function, survival, and growth. Here, we investigated whether GLP-1 and gastrin can restore the beta-cell mass and reverse hyperglycemia in NOD mice with autoimmune diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Acutely diabetic NOD mice were treated with GLP-1 and gastrin, separately or together, twice daily for 3 week...

The major obstacle in cell therapy of diabetes mellitus is the limited source of insulin-producing beta cells. Very recently, it was shown that a five-stage protocol recapitulating in vivo pancreatic organogenesis induced pancreatic beta cells in vitro; however, this protocol is specific to certain cell lines and shows much line-to-line variation in differentiation efficacy. Here, we modified t...

The development of insulin-producing pancreatic beta (beta)-cells represents the culmination of a complex developmental program. Cells of the posterior foregut assume a pancreatic identity, cells within the expanding pancreatic primordia adopt an endocrine fate, and a subset of these precursors becomes competent to generate beta-cells. Postnatally, beta-cells are primarily maintained by self-du...

Under normal conditions, the regeneration of mouse beta cells is mainly dependent on their own duplication. Although there is evidence that pancreatic progenitor cells exist around duct, whether non-beta cells in the islet could also potentially contribute to beta cell regeneration in vivo is still controversial. Here, we developed a novel transgenic mouse model to study the pancreatic beta cel...

OBJECTIVE Type 1 and type 2 diabetes are characterized by an approximately 98 and approximately 65% loss of pancreatic beta-cells, respectively. Efforts to reverse either form of diabetes increasingly focus on the possibility of promoting beta-cell replacement and/or regeneration. Islet transplantation has been explored, but it does not provide long-term insulin independence. One possible sourc...

It is well-established that insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells are central in diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, beta cells are destroyed by an autoimmune mechanism, whereas in type 2 diabetes, there is a decrease in functional beta-cell mass. In this context, studying beta cells is of major importance. Beta cells represent only 1% of total pancreatic cells and are found dispersed in the pancre...