Endocrine Abstracts

The formation of the vertebrate pancreas is a complex process that typifies the basic steps of embryonic development. It involves the establishment of competence, specification, signaling from neighboring tissues, morphogenesis, and the elaboration of tissue-specific genetic networks. A full analysis of this multistep process will help us to understand classic principles of embryonic development. Furthermore, this will provide the blueprint for experimental programming of panc...

Diabetes mellitus is a disease with one of the greatest burdens to both the economy and the individual. Monogenic diabetes mellitus, responsible for neonatal diabetes mellitus and maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY), results from one mutation in a single gene. Many of these genes play a role in pancreatic development and their variants can increase risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Therefore, while the monogenic form of diabetes contributes the least to the over...