TRIB3 and type 2 diabetes mellitus: Human TRIB3 has been shown to regulate insulin signalling by acting as an inhibitor of Akt (Du et al., 2003; Koo et al., 2004), and the presence of a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in TRIB3 is reported to be a risk factor for T2DM (Prudente et al., 2009).