Dissecting diabetes/metabolic disease mechanisms using pluripotent stem cells and genome editing tools.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Diabetes and metabolic syndromes are chronic, devastating diseases with increasing prevalence. Human pluripotent stem cells are gaining popularity in their usage for human in vitro disease modeling. With recent rapid advances in genome editing tools, these cells can now be genetically manipulated with relative ease to study how genes and gene variants contribute to diabetes and metabolic syndromes.

Scope of review

We highlight the diabetes and metabolic genes and gene variants, which could potentially be studied, using two powerful technologies - human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) and genome editing tools - to aid the elucidation of yet elusive mechanisms underlying these complex diseases.

Major conclusions

hPSCs and the advancing genome editing tools app

SUBMITTER: Teo AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4563028 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature