Transdifferentiation of Enteroendocrine K-cells into Insulin-expressing Cells

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Background: Despite a recent breakthough in human islet transplantation for treating type 1 diabetes mellitus, the limited availability of donor pancreases remains a major obstacle. Endocrine cells within the gut epithelium (enteroendocrine cells) and pancreatic cells share similar pathways of differentiation during embryonic development. In particular, K-cells that secrete glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) have been shown to express many of the key proteins found in cells. Therefore, we hypothesize that K-cells can be transdifferentiated into cells because both cells have remarkable similarities in their embryonic development and cellular phenotypes.