The relevance of finely regulated Zn trafficking in β-cells has been demonstrated by the fact that a highly prevalent Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) rs13266634 in the SLC30A8 gene encoding the β-cell Zn transporter ZnT8 has been linked to an increased risk for T2DM in several genome wide association studies2–7. This evidence concerns the gene SLC30A8 and type 2 diabetes mellitus.