Oxidative stress is induced in pancreatic beta-cells under diabetic conditions and causes beta-cell dysfunction. Antioxidant treatment of diabetic animals leads to recovery of insulin biosynthesis and increases the expression of its controlling transcription factor, pancreatic duodenal homeobox-1 (PDX-1), in pancreatic beta-cells. Here, we show that PDX-1 is translocated from the nuclei to the cytoplasm of pancreatic beta-cells in response to oxidative stress. When oxidative stress was charged upon beta-cell-derived HIT-T15 cells, both endogenous PDX-1 and exogenously introduced green fluorescent protein-tagged PDX-1 moved from the nuclei to the cytoplasm. The addition of a dominant negative form of c-Jun NH(2)-terminal kinase (JNK) inhibited oxidative stress-induced PDX-1 translocation, suggesting an essential role of JNK in mediating this phenomenon. Whereas the nuclear localization signal (NLS) in PDX-1 was not affected by oxidative stress, leptomycin B, a specific inhibitor of the classical leucine-rich nuclear export signal (NES), inhibited nucleo-cytoplasmic translocation of PDX-1 induced by oxidative stress. Moreover, we identified an NES at position 82-94 of the mouse PDX-1 protein. Thus, our present results revealed a novel mechanism that negatively regulates PDX-1 function. The identification of the NES, which overrides the function of the NLS in an oxidative stress-responsive, JNK-dependent manner, supports the complicated regulation of PDX-1 function in vivo and may further the understanding of beta-cell pathophysiology in diabetes.