GAS1 and diabetes mellitus: Furthermore, Luna-Antonio et al. (2017) suggested that the loss of growth arrest-specific 1 (Gas1), a pleiotropic protein with novel functions including anti-proliferative and proapoptotic activities, in renal damage due to diabetes promotes the activation of parietal progenitor cells in the Bowman’s capsule that might differentiate into podocytes and compensate for their loss.