Diabetes in mice cured with human stem cells
Regular insulin injections are still the only method of treating type 1 diabetes mellitus, an autoimmune disease that usually occurs in childhood or at a young age, in which insulin–producing beta cells of the pancreas are destroyed. Despite the effectiveness of a number of attempts to transplant beta cells from a healthy donor, this approach is rarely used due to a shortage of donor material.
Researchers from the Canadian University of British Columbia and the American company BetaLogics, led by Professor Timothy Kieffer, have developed a protocol that effectively differentiates commercially available embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into a highly enriched population of pancreatic progenitor cells capable of differentiating into mature endocrine cells of the pancreas.
These cells were transplanted into immunodeficient mice with streptozotocin-induced diabetes, whose blood glucose levels were initially regulated by exogenous insulin. When a certain level of concentration of insulin synthesized by the transplant was reached, injections of the hormone were stopped. Within 3-4 months after the procedure, normal insulin levels remained in the blood of mice, and the transplanted cells extracted from the body had all the markers of insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.
The researchers are very inspired by the results obtained, however, they note that additional research work is necessary to test the methodology in clinical trials. The problem is that the experiments were conducted on animals with an inferior immune system, which excluded the possibility of rejection of the transplanted cells. Therefore, the next step is to develop a method of protecting implanted cells from the recipient's immune system in such a way that after treatment, patients do not have to take immunosuppressive drugs throughout their lives.
Article by Alireza Rezania et al. Maturation of Human Embryonic Stem Cell–Derived Pancreatic Progenitors into Functional Islets Capable of Treating Pre-existing Diabetes in Mice is published in the journal Diabetes.
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of the University of British Columbia: Stem cells can beat back diabetes: UBC research.
28.06.2012