Vascularization helps transplantation
Type 1 diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease accompanied by an autoimmune lesion of the beta cells of the pancreatic islets. To date, there are no therapies that can cure this disease, patients are forced to receive insulin injections for life and control blood glucose levels.
An international team of researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (USA) and Yokohama City University (Japan) in the laboratory created pancreatic tissue, which after transplantation is able to produce insulin and quickly overgrown with blood vessels. To do this, the scientists used the self-indexing technique of cell culture developed by them.
Transplanted islets of Langerhans (green),
surrounded by a network of blood vessels (red).
The researchers tested their technology on human organ cells (pancreas, brain, heart, etc.), mouse cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. They combined each of the tissue types with two types of progenitor cells (mesenchymal stem cells and umbilical cord vascular endothelial cells). The scientists performed the genetic and biochemical interventions necessary to create the tissue of the pancreatic islets, and placed the material in a nutrient medium. Under these conditions, the "ingredients" independently condensed and organized into pancreatic cells.
Transplantation of tissue grown in this way to mouse models of severe type 1 diabetes mellitus led to their complete cure.
The main problem of such methods of diabetes treatment is the low survival rate of transplanted cells. This is due to the lack of blood supply. Treatment based on beta-cell transplantation has great potential and is capable of someday completely defeating type 1 diabetes, but now its implementation is impossible due to the short life span of transplanted cells that die from hypoxia.
The new technology of cell culture by self-condensation promotes the growth of blood vessels in the tissue of the recipient's organ. After transplantation to animals, a network of vessels quickly entwined the islands. Thanks to this, they were preserved for a long time and secreted insulin, the animals completely recovered.
The authors of the study previously presented the results of successful transplantation of liver cells grown according to their own method, which also took root well due to the formation of a vascular network. Now they have taken a new height by successfully repeating the experiment with beta cells.
Nevertheless, they recognize that the technology requires additional research, and only then can it be introduced into clinical practice.
Article by Y. Takahashi et al. Self-Condensation Culture Enables Vascularization of Tissue Fragments for Efficient Therapeutic Transplantation published in the journal Cell Reports.
Aminat Adzhieva, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru Based on Cincinnati Children's Materials: Tissue Engineered Human Pancreas Cells Successfully Treat Diabetic Mice.