Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. May 25, 2016; 7(10): 198-208
Published online May 25, 2016. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v7.i10.198
Insulin-secreting β cells require a post-genomic concept
Fang-Xu Jiang, Grant Morahan
Fang-Xu Jiang, Islet Cell Development Program, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, Nedlands, WA 6009, Australia
Grant Morahan, Centre for Diabetes Research, the University of Western Australia, Perth, WA 6009, Australia
Author contributions: All the authors contributed to this work.
Supported by The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (4-2006-1025); Medical Research Foundation of Royal Perth Hospital; and Perth Children’s Hospital Research Fund (TPCHRF2013) Grant (to F.X. Jiang) partially.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Fang-Xu Jiang, Islet Cell Development Program, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, 6 Verdun St, Nedlands, WA 6009, Australia. fang-xu.jiang@perkins.uwa.edu.au
Telephone: +61-8-61510758 Fax: +61-8-61510701
Received: June 28, 2015
Peer-review started: July 14, 2015
First decision: September 17, 2015
Revised: March 2, 2016
Accepted: March 17, 2016
Article in press: March 19, 2016
Published online: May 25, 2016
Processing time: 322 Days and 19.3 Hours
Abstract

Pancreatic insulin-secreting β cells are essential in maintaining normal glucose homeostasis accomplished by highly specialized transcription of insulin gene, of which occupies up to 40% their transcriptome. Deficiency of these cells causes diabetes mellitus, a global public health problem. Although tremendous endeavors have been made to generate insulin-secreting cells from human pluripotent stem cells (i.e., primitive cells capable of giving rise to all cell types in the body), a regenerative therapy to diabetes has not yet been established. Furthermore, the nomenclature of β cells has become inconsistent, confusing and controversial due to the lack of standardized positive controls of developmental stage-matched in vivo cells. In order to minimize this negative impact and facilitate critical research in this field, a post-genomic concept of pancreatic β cells might be helpful. In this review article, we will briefly describe how β cells were discovered and islet lineage is developed that may help understand the cause of nomenclatural controversy, suggest a post-genomic definition and finally provide a conclusive remark on future research of this pivotal cell.

Keywords: Beta cells; Insulin; Post-genome; Concept

Core tip: Pancreatic β cells are highly effective and efficient in the production of insulin, and specialized in its regulated secretion. Deficiency of β cells causes diabetes mellitus, the prevalence of which keeps climbing, despite new drugs continuously becoming available to clinics. Thus regenerative therapies to this devastating disease show great promise. Nevertheless, the generation of β cells requires multiple forced fate changes from pluripotent stem cells and the latter derived insulin+ cells expressing selective key β-cell transcription factors may not be the genuine islet counterparts. Hence their post-genomic concept may help the future development of diabetes regenerative therapies.