Figure 3.

Chemical induction of stem cells into cells of the pancreatic lineage. Embryonic or iPS cells can be induced to form cells in the pancreatic lineage by the provision of small cell permeable molecules. Inducers of definitive endoderm [16], abbreviated IDEs, can convert embryonic stem cells to Sox 17+ cells that represent definitive endoderm. Similarly, indolactam V [17] can convert definitive endoderm to pancreatic progenitors that are Pdx1+. The low efficiencies of conversion for each step of the process remains a major challenge.