By Pooja Toshniwal PahariaAug 3 2023Reviewed by Lily Ramsey, LLM In a recent review published in Experimental & Molecular Medicine, researchers examined current evidence on the reasons and implications of pancreatic beta-cell failure and its potential reversibility as a type 2 diabetes therapy.
About the review In the review, researchers presented beta-cell failure reversibility as a therapeutic approach for type 2 diabetes. Insulin resistance causes decreased glycogen synthesis, increased glucose generation, and excessive lipogenesis in the liver, all of which contribute to the development of fatty liver and an increase in free fatty acid levels in the plasma and reactive oxygen species in the beta cells.
Metabolic stress exacerbates mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, endoplasmic reticulum stress, unfolded protein response activation, and thyroid adenoma-associated genet upregulation, which results in reduced glucose uptake by muscles and adipocytes and contributes to beta-cell failure and the loss of beta-cell mass, leading to hyperglycemia.
Small chemical inhibitors targeting important regulators of beta-cellular dedifferentiation, including Aldh1a3 and broad complex-tram track-bric a brac and Cap'n'collar homology 2 , might be promising methods to reverse the identity of beta-cells and cure T2D.