Insulin transfected mesenchymals for diabetes

Nantong, China -

While numerous groups are trying to treat diabetes by inducing differentiation of stem cells into insulin producing cells, other groups are simply transfecting the gene for insulin (or proinsulin) into stem cells and administering the cells. While transfection ensures that the gene will be expressed, it does not allow for regulation of insulin production (unless an inducible promoter is used).

In a recent paper (Xu et al. Reversal of Diabetes in Mice by Intrahepatic Injection of Bone-derived GFP-murine Mesenchymal Stem Cells Infected with the Recombinant Retrovirus-carrying Human Insulin Gene. World J Surg. 2007 Jul 25) such an approach was used.

The researchers retrovirally transfected the insulin gene into GFP mesenchymal stem cells and injected the cells intrahepatically into mice made diabetic by streptozotocin treatment.

The animals recieving transfected cells but not control transfected cells demonstrated a weight gain of 6% at 6 weeks post cell administration, as well as improved glycemic control. Secretion of insulin in vivo by the transfected cells was demonstrated by immunohistochemistry.

This study demonstrates that it is possible to utilize mesenchymal stem cells are delivery vehicles for genes. The question now is...can one use allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells to do the same thing? Theoretically this would be great since it would allow for an "off the shelf" solution for gene therapy administration.