Description
Ngn3 is a master regulator of pancreatic endocrine development. It is necessary for the creation of all endocrine cells in mice. Little is known about the genes that act downstream of the transcription factor Ngn3 in pancreas endocrine development to specify each of the endocrine lineages. As a consequence, little is known about the genes involved in early development and the specification of the beta cell. We used microarrays to identify Ngn3 downstream genes that are involved in early and ectopic beta cell development in Xenopus laevis. We overexpressed Ngn3 in the Xenopus early endoderm and analyzed the genes that are upregulated four hours after.