Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells Made to Produce Insulin
Taipei, Taiwan -
In addition to their known ability to differentiate into muscle, bone, and neuronal cells, mesenchymal stem cells have been demonstrated to have the ability to differentiate into insulin producing cells when transfected with the transcription factor PDX-1. In a recent paper (Chang et al. Fibronectin and pellet suspension culture promote differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cells into insulin producing cells.J Biomed Mater Res A. 2007 Dec 13) the differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells into insulin producing cells was performed without the need for transfection.
The authors generated a 4 step differentiation system in which the mesenchymal stem cells were first induced towards the neural lineage, followed by nicotinamide treatment. This protocol is reminiscent of another multi-step protocol that was demonstrated to induce differentiation of bone marrow cells into insulin producing cells.
Growing mesenchymal stem cells in monolayers was demonstrated to allow for the expression of two transcription factors associated with pancreatic development, specifically Nkx6.1 and Ngn3, however they did not express insulin. When the cells were cultured on fibronectin, the cells upregulated expression of the glucose transporter Glut2, as well as insulin. Augmentation of insulin production was seen when cells were grown in high glucose.
An important part of the study is the finding that culture of the mesenchymal stem cells in monolayers did not allow for the cells to differentiate into insulin producing cells but growing the cells in pellet suspension did allow for differentiation.
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Cellia Habita said...
The generation of insulin from various cells is not new. But it is new that it is coming from mesenchymal stem cells. Since companies such as Osiris, but others as well, are clinically developing mesenchymal stem cells, it will be interest to see how they effect diseases such as diabetes.
The new age of regenerative medicine has begun !!
I think that it is however very interesting that you take the trouble to compile all of this information together in one easy to find, highly readable place. Great job StemCellPatents.com !
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Emi Rappoport said...
I notice that "Dr" Steenblock does not have comments on these kind of papers. Thats because he does not understand them. All you know how to do Steenblock is inject stuff into people and say that it is "stem cells"