Moreover, several independent lines of evidence indicated that NRF1 is implicated in lipid droplet accumulation, cell proliferation and apoptosis of the mouse preadipocyte cell line 3T3-L1 and the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes (Cho et al., 2005; Liu et al., 2008; Tienen et al., 2010). This evidence concerns the gene NRF1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus.