Consistent with this hypothesis, we found that maternal diabetes results in increased expression of Alx3 mRNA in wild type embryos (Fig. 4A), and that the levels of ALX3 protein were elevated when primary MEM cells were cultured in the presence of high rather than low glucose (Fig. 4B,C), indicating that Alx3 is a glucose-responsive gene in mouse embryos. This evidence concerns the gene ALX3 and diabetes mellitus.