Isolation of total RNA and qPCR assays
Cells or murine islets were homogenized in TRIZOL (Invitrogen) for isolation of RNA, according to the manufacturer’s protocol. A two-step M-MLV Platinum SYBR Green qPCR SuperMix-UDG kit (Vazyme Biotech) was used to conduct reverse transcription and quantitative PCR. The primers for the genes (listed in Table S2), including Insulin1 , Pdx-1 , Mafa ,Heparanase (Hpse) , Pparg (PPARγ), Smad4 , andLef1 , were synthesized by Invitrogen. The amount of each gene was determined according to the amount of GAPDH.