For the first time, scientists in China reprogrammed a woman’s fat cells to turn them into insulin-producing pancreatic cells, which reversed her type 1 diabetes.
The move adds to a growing body of evidence that reprogrammed stem cells could one day be used to treat or cure chronic disease. The patient treated in the latest study still does not need injected insulin a year after her procedure.
These findings are “very exciting,” he said Dr. Kevan HeroldCNH Long professor of immunobiology and medicine at Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research.
Insulin is the chemical switch that allows sugar molecules to leave the bloodstream and enter cells, where they can be used for fuel. IN type 1 diabeteshowever, the immune system it destroys the body’s insulin-producing cells, which are located inside larger “mini-organs” inside the pancreas called islets.
Related: Drug may reduce insulin need in type 1 diabetes, early trial suggests
Without insulin, cells are starved for fuel as blood sugar levels rise. In extreme cases, people die as the body excretes acidic compounds, known as ketones, in an attempt to produce enough energy for cells to survive.
In the new study, which was published Thursday (October 31) in the journal Cellscientists took fat cells from a patient with type 1 diabetes and used chemicals to turn them into “pluripotent” stem cells, meaning they could turn into any type of cell.
After returning the cells to this state, the scientists chemically induced them to become islet cells. These new islet cells were then implanted into the patient’s abdomen.
Before undergoing this experimental treatment, the patient struggled to control her blood sugar, spending less than half of her time in a healthy “target” blood sugar range, the study’s lead author said. . Hongkui Denga researcher at the Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences at Peking University in Beijing. After transplanting the patient’s cells, her time in the target area “improved to over 98%,” Deng told Live Science in an email.
75 days after the transplant, the patient no longer needed to inject insulin to control her blood sugar.
“The speed with which the patient showed reversal of diabetes and achieved insulin independence after transplantation was surprising,” Deng said. “This discovery suggested a tremendous potential of this therapeutic strategy.”
Transplantation of islet cells into patients is not a new approach. For three decadesscientists have collected islets from donated bodies and then transplanted the cells into the livers of patients with type 1 diabetes. However, there are a limited number of donors and transplant recipients must take strong drugs for the rest of their lives to suppress the immune system and prevent rejection of their new mini-organs. As a result, only patients who need other transplants, such as kidney or liver transplants, usually receive donor islet cells.
The patient in the new study was no different in this regard. She had previously received a liver transplant and was also taking strong immune-suppressing drugs. However, the new type of islet transplant she received marks a breakthrough: Unlike cells from donated bodies, stem cells provide a potentially unlimited source of new islets.
Cells grafted into the abdomen fared better than those implanted in the liver usually, showing “significantly improved insulin secretion,” Deng said. Additionally, the abdomen is easily accessible and can be scanned using MRI. This means the implanted cells can be easily monitored for safety and removed if they start to fail, he added.
The new study is part of a growing body of evidence that islets derived from stem cells can reverse type 1 diabetes, at least for a while. For example, Vertex Pharmaceuticals is developing islets of embryonic cell origin and has shown that these cells can normalize blood sugar levels, at least in a small proportion of patients tested so far.
While the new stem cell treatment may not face the traditional risks associated with organ rejection, transplanted islets may still be targeted for destruction by the immune system. For this treatment to be suitable for more patients with type 1 diabetes, scientists must find a way to make stem cell transplants invisible to the immune system without the use of strong immunosuppressants.