Abstract
In vivo regeneration of β cells provides hope for self-renewal of functional insulin-secreting cells following β-cell failure, a historically fatal condition now sustainable only by administration of exogenous insulin. Despite advances in the treatment of diabetes mellitus, the path toward endogenous renewal of β-cell populations has remained elusive. Intensive efforts have focused on elucidating pancreatic transcriptional programs that can drive the division and (trans-)differentiation of non-β cells to produce insulin. A surprise has been the identification of an essential role of the molecular circadian clock in the regulation of competent insulin-producing β cells. In this issue of Genes & Development, work by Petrenko and colleagues (pp. 1650-1665) now shows a requirement for the intrinsic clock in the regenerative capacity of insulin-producing cells following genetic ablation of β cells. These studies raise the possibility that enhancing core clock activity may provide an adjuvant in cell replacement therapies.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1559-1561 |
| Number of pages | 3 |
| Journal | Genes and Development |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue number | 23-24 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 1 2020 |
Funding
We thank Biliana Marcheva for creating the figure, and Kathryn Moynihan Ramsey for helpful discussions. This work was supported by National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) grants (R01DK090625 and R01DK11 3011-01A1), National Institute on Aging (NIA) grants (P01AG 011412 and R01AG065988), the Chicago Biomedical Consortium (S-007), and the University of Chicago Diabetes Research and Training Center (P60DK020595) to J.B., and a National Research Service Award (NRSA; grant F30DK116481) to B.J.W.
Keywords
- Circadian clockwork
- Diabetes
- Glucose metabolism
- Insulin-rtTA/ TET-DTA mouse model
- Pancreatic α and β cells
- β-cell proliferation
- β-cell regeneration
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Genetics
- Developmental Biology
