Stem Cells Offer Great Opportunity for Diabetes Therapy

by admin | Feb 6, 2017 | Studies

In a thoughtful review, Meng Liu and Zhong Chao Han discuss the reasons that mesenchymal stem cells derived from bone marrow, fat, and fetal tissue are attractive candidates for improving type 1 diabetes therapy. Though type 1 diabetes is often treated with insulin replacement therapy, transplanting islet cells from the pancreas has become a means for curing the disease. Nonetheless, islet transplantation has a number of limitations, most of which occur as a result of isolating the islet cells from the pancreas. While isolated, the cells are vulnerable to damage and death, and as a result, effective therapy often requires a series of transplants.

Because mesenchymal stem cells possess a number of important characteristics that are lost or absent in islet cells, scientists have posited that they may have potential in the treatment of diabetes. For instance, immune system reactions to transplants often make transplants unsuccessful. However, mesenchymal stem cells modulate the immune system such that they can minimize these immune reactions. Mesenchymal stem cells are also able to differentiate into a variety of cell lineages and to promote the development of new blood vessels. These features make mesenchymal stem cells appealing from the general perspective of transplantation, where the generation of new cells and new cell networks within tissue is critical.

Given that mesenchymal stem cells appear to be a promising candidate for diabetes therapy, researchers have pondered how best to leverage the potential of these stem cells for the specific purpose of reinstating insulin function in type 1 diabetics. According to this review, one leading notion is to generate insulin-producing cells from mesenchymal stem cells.

Though there appear to be a number of specific ways to achieve insulin-producing cells from mesenchymal stem cells, the researchers point to the technical challenges associated with these methods but remain optimistic about the potential to do so. By laying the conceptual groundwork for using mesenchymal stem cells for type 1 diabetes treatment, Liu and Chao pave the way for future researchers to develop specific research protocols for improving our understanding of how mesenchymal stem cells can be used in the development of these important therapies.

Learn about how stem cells can help treat severe Diabetes here.

Reference

Liu, M & Han, Z.C. (2008). Mesenchymal stem cells: biology and clinical potential in type 1 diabetes therapy. Journal of Cellular & Molecular Medicine, 12(4), 1155-1168.

Stem Cells Helping Treat Severe Diabetes

by admin | Jan 26, 2017 | Studies

Severe diabetics are often treated through a technique called islet transplantation, but this transplantation method has certain limitations. Researchers have recently demonstrated that that using a certain type of stem cell, called the mesenchymal stem cell, can improve the ability of islet transplants to improve diabetes in patients.

Those who suffer from Type 1 diabetes experience the destruction of beta cells in the pancreas. Islet transplantation is a means for reconstructing these cells that are lost during the progression of diabetes, but the long-term effects of traditional islet transplantation are limited, and the transplants often have to be performed a number of times on any given patient. Part of the problem is that the beta cells in the islets are easily damaged or killed once they are isolated for transplantation purposes and do not easily proliferate into other cells.

Unlike islets, mesenchymal stem cells are less vulnerable, highly proliferative, and differentiate into several cell types. They also have the added benefits of promoting healthy vasculature and immune activity. Given these benefits of mesenchymal stem cells, scientists hypothesized that combining the function of beta cells with the abilities of mesenchymal stem cells would produce a more effective therapy for diabetes than islet transplantation alone. To achieve this result, Shoichiro Sumi’s team decided to fuse these cell types together.

In a study published in PLOS One, researchers demonstrated how to successfully overcome the technical difficulty of fusing mesenchymal stem cells to islet cells for the purposes of treating diabetes. The fused cells were associated with markers that indicated that the cells were less susceptible to death than islet cells are alone and that they also proliferated more than islet cells generally do.

Having cleared the technical hurdle of fusing islet cells with mesenchymal stem cells and showing that this technique is successful in creating cells that are more robust than islet cells, researchers are now poised to test the ability of these cells to improve therapeutic interventions for those with severe diabetes. If the researchers can show that fewer transplants or longer-term results can be achieved with these fused cells, islet transplantation for diabetics may be transformed.

Learn more about how stem cells provide regenerative therapy for Diabetes here.

Reference

Yanai, G. et al (2013). Electrofusion of mesenchymal stem cells and islet cells for diabetes therapy: a rat model. PLOS One, 8(5), 1-9.