Recent progress in studies of factors that elicit pancreatic ß-cell expansion.

ABSTRACT

The loss of or decreased functional pancreatic ß-cell is a major cause of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Previous studies have shown that adult ß-cells can maintain their ability for a low level of turnover through replication and neogenesis. Thus, a strategy to prevent and treat diabetes would be to enhance the ability of ß-cells to increase the mass of functional ß-cells. Consequently, much effort has been devoted to identify factors that can effectively induce ß-cell expansion. This review focuses on recent reports on small molecules and protein factors that have been shown to promote ß-cell expansion.