Development of the endocrine pancreas.

This short review presents the recent breakthroughts in our understanding of the important steps controlling pancreas morphogenesis and differentiation, and on the transcription factors regulating pancreas organogenesis and islet cell differentiation and involved in the specification of the beta and alpha cell lineages. All these studies should permit a comprehensive view of the full genetic program necessary to produce mature and functional beta cells and thus, should be instrumental to guide future strategies for cell replacement therapies in type 1 diabetes.