The Hypothalamus and β-Cell Connection in the Gene-Targeting Era

摘要

After years of debate, Le Douarin's elegant work (1) established that pancreatic islet cells differentiate from progenitors emerging from the definitive gut endoderm rather than from neu-roectoderm as had been inferred from co-expression of neuronal markers. Although islet cells and the brain do not share a common developmental origin, a fascinating picture has emerged in which they nonetheless share many biochemical pathways and, hence, are characterized by extensive overlap in gene expression. Brain and islet are also tightly linked functionally through neural-entero-islet, brain-islet, and islet-brain axes (2,3). Thus, the secretion of