New hope for diabetes treatment, human islet non-β cells can also produce insulin
February 15, 2019 Source: Science and Technology Daily Author: Zhang Meng Ran
Window._bd_share_config={ "common":{ "bdSnsKey":{ },"bdText":"","bdMini":"2","bdMiniList":false,"bdPic":"","bdStyle":" 0","bdSize":"16"},"share":{ }};with(document)0[(getElementsByTagName('head')[0]||body).appendChild(createElement('script')) .src='http://bdimg.share.baidu.com/static/api/js/share.js?v=89860593.js?cdnversion='+~(-new Date()/36e5)];The British "Nature" magazine published a new medical result online on the 14th: the Swiss research team reported that it has been possible to re-encode human alpha and gamma islet cells to produce insulin. Usually, only islet beta cells can produce insulin. Animal experiments have shown that scientists have found the first direct evidence of human mature islet non-beta cell plasticity.
Cells that are stimulated and converted to different cell types are a widely regenerative strategy in animals but rarely recorded in mammals. In mice, if insulin-secreting islet beta cells are destroyed, non-beta cells in the islets can produce insulin. But so far, scientists have not known whether human islet cells can show the same plasticity.
This time, Pedro Herrenal, a researcher at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and colleagues studied in detail whether human islet alpha and gamma cells from diabetic and non-diabetic donors can be re-encoded to produce glucose-responsive insulin. After the scientists implanted the modified cells into mice with diabetes, the symptoms of diabetes in the mice were alleviated. The final research team reported that increasing the expression of two key transcription factors (Pdx1 and MafA) enabled cells to produce insulin, the first direct evidence of human mature islet non-beta cell plasticity.
Later, the team tested whether these insulin-producing human alpha cells could alleviate the clinical symptoms of type I diabetic mice lacking islet beta cells. When they transplanted insulin-producing alpha cells from multiple donors into mice, their glucose tolerance, secretion, and blood levels were normalized. After transplantation, the cells continue to secrete insulin for up to 6 months.
Scientists point out that these findings provide conceptual evidence of the plasticity of human islet cells. The cultivation of this plasticity to replace the missing cell population represents a potential treatment for diabetes and other degenerative diseases.
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