The Making of Pancreatic β Cells: Advances and Apprehensions

Abstract

Abstract. Diabetes is a dreadful disease, which in its acute stages, causes severe multiple organ failure. It is also one of the world's oldest diseases. Type 1 Diabetes is characterized by the absence of insulin and exogenous insulin dependency. Stem cell therapy is one of the promises of this era, as there are numerous studies on Rodents, Frogs, Zebra fish, Dog and Chick, elucidating the wide array of genes, transcription factors, signaling pathways and compounds, which could promote β cell neogenesis, regeneration, differentiation and trans-differentiation. Even though, a recent PubMed search on the keyword 'Pancreatic beta cell proliferation' revealed around 3000 reports, this review focuses on the trends attempted in recent years and infers certain critical aspects in the observations.