Diabetes mellitus is characterized by chronic high blood glucose levels resulted from deficiency and/or dysfunction of insulin-producing pancreatic β cells. Generation of large amounts of functional pancreatic β cells is critical for the study of pancreatic biology and treatment of diabetes. Recent advances in directed differentiation of pancreatic β-like cells from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) can provide patient-specific and disease-relevant target cells. With the improved differentiation protocols, it is now possible to generate large amounts of functional human pancreatic β-like cells that can response to high level of glucose both in vitro and in vivo. Combined with precise genomic editing, biomedical engineering, high throughput profiling, bioinformatics, and high throughput genetic and chemical screening, these hPSC-derived pancreatic β-like cells will hold great potentials in disease modeling, drug discovery, and cell-based therapies. In this review, we summarize the recent progress in human pancreatic β-like cells derived from hPSCs and discuss their potential applications.

中文翻译：

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人多能干细胞衍生的胰腺β细胞的最新进展和潜在应用。

糖尿病的特征在于由产生胰岛素的胰腺β细胞的缺乏和/或功能障碍导致的慢性高血糖水平。大量功能性胰腺β细胞的产生对于胰腺生物学研究和糖尿病治疗至关重要。胰腺β样细胞与人多能干细胞（hPSC）定向分化的最新进展可以提供患者特异性和疾病相关的靶细胞。通过改进的分化方案，现在有可能产生大量功能性人胰岛β样细胞，这些细胞在体外和体内均可对高水平的葡萄糖作出反应。这些hPSC衍生的胰腺β样细胞与精确的基因组编辑，生物医学工程，高通量分析，生物信息学以及高通量遗传和化学筛选相结合，将在疾病建模，药物发现和基于细胞的疗法中具有巨大的潜力。在这篇综述中，我们总结了源自hPSC的人胰腺β样细胞的最新进展，并讨论了它们的潜在应用。