In the developing pancreas, seemingly equivalent progenitor cells differentiate into the four types of hormone-positive islet cells: alpha, beta, gamma and delta. Insulin-secreting beta cells are destroyed in type 1 diabetes, and understanding how beta cells develop could lead to new cellular or regenerative therapeutic strategies for diabetes.
, PhD,聽, PhD, and colleagues have now discovered that epigenetic 鈥渕arks鈥� on the DNA promoters of specific genes bias certain pancreatic progenitor cells toward maturing into different endocrine cell types.