DRI INVENTION PROMOTES INCREASE
IN INSULIN PRODUCING CELLS
August 30, 2007 - (Miami) - One of the major challenges to islet
cell transplantation as the treatment of choice for type 1 diabetes
is the shortage of donor tissue supply.
Patients often need a re-infusion of islet cells after the initial
treatment, and this means another donor pancreas is needed to provide
the fragile islet cells for transplant. New findings by researchers
at the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami could
represent a big step forward in possibly alleviating the
problem.
Up until now investigators have had only moderate success in
differentiating either adult stem cells or embryonic stem cells to
become insulin-producing beta cells.
A large part of the problem has been inducing the proper culture
environment in the laboratory. Researchers know that islets require
a high amount of oxygen for optimal health, so DRI researchers
created a new cell culture device called the "oxygen sandwich" to
provide the cells with a more natural oxygen environment than those
used in traditional culture methods.
"Using mouse pancreatic stem cells, we were able to show that
delivering oxygen in a physiological way enhanced enormously their
differentiation into beta cells, with insulin levels exceeding 30-
fold those observed in control conditions," said Juan Domínguez-
Bendala, Ph.D., research assistant professor of surgery, director of
the Stem Cell Development and Translational Research Laboratory at
the Diabetes Research Institute, and senior author of the study which
was published online in Stem Cells Express.
"It is as though these stem cells were just waiting for us to provide
them with the conditions they needed to mature. We believe this is a
major step toward the efficient generation of beta cells for clinical
transplantation.
The new cell culture device, designed by Chris Fraker, senior
research associate in the Tissue Engineering Laboratory at the
Diabetes Research Institute, closely mimics the natural oxygen
environment. The device "sandwiches" the stem cells with oxygen from
two sources, one from the top with air diffusing through the culture
medium and the second from the bottom with air diffusing through a
silicon membrane mixed with perfluorocarbon, a very powerful oxygen
reservoir.
"The use of high oxygen to promote differentiation of insulin-
producing cells opens the way to many other applications with
different sources of progenitor cells, beyond embryonic stem cells
and beyond diabetes," said Camillo Ricordi, M.D., scientific director
of the Diabetes Research Institute.
###
Media Contact:
Jeanne Antol Krull
305-243-4853
jkrull@med.miami.
http://www.diabetes
IncreasesInsulinPro
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Cord Blood Registry
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The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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