Figure 1.

Schematic presentation of generation of iPSCs (induced pluripotent stem cells) from healthy and diabetic patients and their application in the patient-specific iPSC-based diabetic therapy. Footprint-free iPSCs can be generated from healthy individual- or diabetic patient-derived somatic cells using reprogramming DNA-, RNA-, protein-, miRNA-, or small molecule-mediated reprogramming system. DiPSCs (iPSCs derived from diabetic patients) can be further differentiated into insulin-secreting pancreatic β cells for cell-based diabetic drug screening or for transplantation into diabetic patients for cell therapy. DiPSCs can also be repaired by gene correction and then be differentiated into functional insulin-secreting pancreatic β cells, which can be transplanted into a specific diabetic patient. For disease modeling, DiPSCs can be differentiated into insulin-secreting pancreatic β cells for drug screening or pathogenesis studies to develop the compounds or therapies to treat specific type of diabetes.