Trans-differentiated Human Hepatic Progenitors into Insulin producing β-Cells: A Step closer towards the Diabetes Cell Therapy

Over the past few years, islet transplantation has emerged as one of innovative strategy for the treatment of diabetes mellitus, but the limited yield of quality donor pancreata makes this strategy inadequate. Therefore, patients affected with diabetes mellitus are in great need for the alternative source of β-cells. Liver is the most promising source of cells, as it has the same embryonic origin as the pancreas. Liver and pancreas develops from the same endoderm and share the similarity in most of their developmental regulatory pathways. Various studies from past have differentiated liver cells into pancreatic β-cells by transfecting with specific transcription factors like Pdx-1, Ngn-3, Isl-1, Pax-4, and Pax-6 [1-5].