Mesenchymal "Islets"
Seoul, Korea -
The search for ways of generating islets for treatment of Type 1 Diabetes is very intense with groups claiming to have generating islets from a wide variety of stem cells. In a recent study (Kim et al. Generation of insulin-producing human mesenchymal stem cells using recombinant adeno-associated virus.Yonsei Med J. 2007 Feb 28;48(1):109-19.) investigators transfected mesenchymal stem cells with the preproinsulin gene that is furin cleavable. Transfection was performed using adenovirus.
The generated results demonstrated that transfection was feasible and the cells produced both insulin and C-peptide.
The advantages of generating such "surrogate islets" from mesenchymal stem cells is that there would be no need to perform person-specific therapy since the mesenchymal stem cells are immune suppressive and could theoretically be used as an "off the shelf" product. In fact, mesenchymal stem cells are currently used in this manner by the company Osiris for treatment of GVHD and Crohn's Disease in Phase III clinical trials in the US.
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Hwal SUH said...
From the corresponding author of the article:
Though the result was acceptable at a research level, further study about cilinically applicable tool is necessary at present and it is under planning.