Deciphering protective mechanism against human type 2 diabetes through in vitro β cell differentiation

To systemically investigate the role of ZnT8 in β cell maturation, we performed single cell RNA-seq in both WT and KO β cells at both S6 (immature) and S7 (mature) stages. Both WT and KO β cells were obtained from FACS as positive for both INS and NKX6.1. Single cell RNA-seq results revealed that SLC30A8 is mainly involved in β cell maturation process, and further showed that SLC30A8 LOF accelerates β cell maturation and upregulates insulin secretion pathway in mature β cells. In total, 1543 cells with four types of β cell were utilized.