RBFOX2 and diabetes mellitus: However, with the advent of whole genome sequencing, improved read depth, and long-read sequencing of human islet samples, RBFOX2 will likely emerge as a diabetes risk gene RBFOX2 function has also been characterized across many cell types and systems, including β cells18, neurons37,52,53, muscle cells31,34–36, stem cells29, and in cancers54.