Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease marked by hyperglycemia; impaired insulin secretion by pancreatic β-cells is a hallmark of this disease. Recent studies have shown that hypoxia occurs in the β-cells of patients with type 2 diabetes and hypoxia, in turn, contributes to the insulin secretion defect and β-cell loss through various mechanisms, including the activation of hypoxia-inducible factors, induction of transcriptional repressors, and activation of AMP-activated protein kinase. This review focuses on advances in our understanding of the contribution of β-cell hypoxia to the development of β-cell dysfunction in type 2 diabetes. A better understanding of β-cell hypoxia might be useful in the development of new strategies for treating type 2 diabetes.
Keywords: glucotoxicity; hypoxia; hypoxia-inducible factor; pancreatic β-cells; transcriptional repressor; type 2 diabetes.