Our findingthat TCF3 and TCF7L2 are induced in islets from type II diabetics isparticularly interesting in light of recent linkage association studies inwhich TCF7L2 has been identified as the gene most strongly linked to type IIdiabetes [17–19].TCF7L2 is also a direct downstream target of β-catenin[26],which we found to be induced in type II diabetes. The gene discussed is TCF3; the disease is type 2 diabetes mellitus.