Cumulative autophagy insufficiency in mice leads to progression of β-cell failure

Autophagy is known to play a pivotal role in β-cell function. While the lifelong inhibition of autophagy through Atg7 deletion in β cells has been demonstrated to lead to impaired glucose tolerance together with β-cell dysfunction, the temporal association between autophagy inhibition and β-cell dysfunction remains unclear. To address such questions, inducible β-cell-specific Atg7-knockout (iβAtg7