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Diabetes mellitus, which affects 346 million people, is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Pancreatic β cells play a central role in the progression of diabetes. In addition, pancreas or islet transplantation has been used to treat type 1 diabetes patients. However, the shortage of immune-compatible tissues is one of the major obstacles to the widespread use of transplantation therapy. Developing efficient strategies to derive functional pancreatic β cells is important for both cell replacement therapy and disease modeling of diabetes. In this chapter, we discuss potential sources of stem/progenitor cells to derive pancreatic β cells, including human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), adult pancreatic stem/progenitor cells, and adult non-pancreatic stem cells. In addition, we discussed recent progresses in the research field of β cells replication and somatic cell reprogramming. In conclusion, the studies to derive functional pancreatic β cells are progressing rapidly, but need to be further improved for clinical application. |
