SLC2A4 and type 2 diabetes mellitus: In order to characterize the diabetic phenotypes in our spontaneous diabetic gerbils, we chose five candidate genes including GLUT4 and protein kinase B (Akt) which participate in glucose uptake[13]; leptin and adiponectin which are associated with insulin sensitivity [14, 15]; and calpain 10 (CAPN10) which was identified having associations with T2DM[16].