Insulin-producing cells normally occur only in the pancreas and thymus. Surprisingly, we found widespread insulin mRNA and protein expression in different diabetic mouse and rat models, including streptozotocin-treated mice and rats, ob͞ob mice, and mice fed high-fat diets. We detected in diabetic mice proinsulinand insulin-positive cells in the liver, adipose tissue, spleen, bone marrow, and thymus; many cells also produced glucagon, somatostatin, and pancreatic polypeptide. By in situ nucleic acid hybridization, diabetic, but not nondiabetic, mouse liver exhibited insulin transcript-positive cells, indicating that insulin was synthesized by these cells. In transgenic mice that express GFP driven by the mouse insulin promoter, streptozotocin-induced diabetes led to the appearance of GFP-positive cells in liver, adipose tissue, and bone marrow; the fluorescent signals showed complete concordance with the presence of immunoreactive proinsulin. Hyperglycemia produced by glucose injections in nondiabetic mice led to the appearance of proinsulin-and insulin-positive cells within 3 days. Bone marrow transplantation experiments showed that most of the extrapancreatic proinsulin-producing cells originated from the bone marrow. Immunoreactive proinsulin-and insulin-positive cells were also detected in the liver, adipose tissue, and bone marrow of diabetic rats, indicating that extrapancreatic, extrathymic insulin production occurs in more than one species. These observations have implications for the regulation of insulin gene expression, modulation of selftolerance by insulin gene expression, and strategies for the generation of insulin-producing cells for the treatment of diabetes.pancreatic islets ͉ hyperglycemia ͉ ob͞ob ͉ obesity ͉ bone marrow transplantation I nsulin is normally produced in highly specialized cells of the endocrine pancreas. The tissue-specific expression of insulin is tightly regulated at the transcriptional level, and the major regulatory elements are located in the 5Ј flanking region of the insulin gene (1). Insulin expression is specific to  cells in the pancreatic islets, although proinsulin has also been detected in the fetal and postnatal thymus and spleen͞lymphoid tissues (2, 3), a pattern of promiscuous expression of normally tissuerestricted ''peripheral'' proteins in these tissues (4, 5). Immunoreactivity to insulin plays a key role in autoimmune diabetes in NOD mice (6, 7) and in type 1 diabetes in humans (7); expression of minute amounts of insulin in the thymus is believed to be important in the induction of tolerance to insulin and other ''self-antigens '' (8-11). In this study, we found insulin gene transcription and protein expression in multiple tissues outside the pancreas and thymus in mice and rats with diabetes. The widespread occurrence of extrapancreatic, extrathymic insulin gene products in diabetic animals is surprising; it suggests that we should revise our thinking on the regulation of insulin gene expression, the mechanism of immune tolerance to insulin, the pathophysi...