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Focusing on the major national demands and developing novel research models——the research progress and prospective of islet organoid

SONG E-Li^*, WANG Pu-Yue

Department of Life Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Beijing 100085, China

Abstract

Diabetes is a major metabolic disease and health issue worldwide that imposes a heavy burden. Research on its pathogenesis and development of effective treatments are currently our major national demands. With the advent of organoid technology, islet organoids have emerged and are attracting increasing attention as a promising model for diabetes research. The establishment of islet organoids is based on the current understanding of islet development. With addition of extra induction factors in vitro to programmatically activate or inhibit specific signaling pathways during islet development, stem cells can be induced to differentiate into three-dimensional cell cultures that possess structures and functions similar to those of natural islets. Because of their capability to mimic the development of islets in vitro, faithfully replicate islet structure, and perform islet physiological functions, islet organoids have been widely used as a valuable tool for the investigation of diabetes pathogenesis, drug screening and evaluation, and clinical transplantation, showing a great potential application. This paper reviews the current research progress, application, and challenges of islet organoids, and discusses the future directions for research on islet organoids.

Key words: organoid; islet organoid; diabetes; research model; research progress

Received: 　　Accepted:

Corresponding author: 宋婀莉　　E-mail: songeli@nsfc.gov.cn

DOI: 10.13294/j.aps.2023.0071

Citing This Article：

SONG E-Li, WANG Pu-Yue. Focusing on the major national demands and developing novel research models——the research progress and prospective of islet organoid. Acta Physiol Sin 2024; 76 (1): 137-147 (in Chinese with English abstract).