DICER1 and Hyperglycemia: Kalis et al. (2011) reported that conditional inactivation of Dicer1 in differentiated β-cells using Rip-Cre transgenic mice doesn’t affects β-cell mass in newborn mice. However, at 12-week of age, these mutant mice gradually developed hyperglycemia from 12 weeks, glucose intolerance and full-blown diabetes mellitus, which is attributed to impaired insulin secretion and loss of β-cell mass (Kalis et al., 2011; Mandelbaum et al., 2012).