Work by Chen et al. (2012) demonstrated that the ATF-4-mediated activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is responsible for inflammation, vascular endothelial damage and loss of angiogenic capacity in streptozotocin-induced wild-type mouse model of type-1 diabetes, while ATF-4 knockout mice were protected. Here, STAT3 is linked to type 1 diabetes mellitus.