Scientists find pancreatic stem cells in mice
Thu Jan 24, 2008 3:48pm EST
CHICAGO (Reuters) - After most scientists had given up the search, a
Belgian team said on Thursday they found elusive pancreatic stem
cells in adult mice, a finding that could lead to treatments for
people with type-1 diabetes.
Scientists have long hunted for adult cells with the capacity to make
insulin-producing cells known as beta cells, which help regulate the
body's blood sugar levels.
If coaxed into reproducing, adult stem cells or progenitor cells
could offer a way to replace beta cells lost or destroyed in people
with diabetes.
"For many years people believed that progenitor cells existed in the
adult pancreas but were not able to trace or isolate them," Harry
Heimberg, a diabetes researcher at Vrije Universiteit Brussels and
the Beta Cell Biology Consortium, said in an e-mail.
More recent studies found that under normal circumstances, adult
progenitor cells had little to do with the process of making beta
cells, he said.
"Most people gave up looking because they were so few and so hard to
activate," Heimberg, whose study appears in the journal Cell, said in
a statement.
Currently, there is no cure for type-1 diabetes except rare
pancreatic cell transplants done under what is known as the Edmonton
Protocol, involving transplanting pancreatic cells from cadavers into
the liver.
But these transplants are fragile and it takes several donors to make
one transplant
Researchers are also looking to stem cell therapies, including
embryonic stem cells, as a way to have a more ready supply of cells
to transplant.
Heimberg decided to see if they could get the body's own progenitor
cells to make beta cells under abnormal circumstances, such as
significant injury.
STRESS AND INFLAMMATION
His team clamped off a duct that drains digestive enzymes from the
pancreas in laboratory mice. This led to a doubling of beta cells in
the pancreas within two weeks.
These animals began to produce more insulin, suggesting the new beta
cells were working. Heimberg suspects the cells began to regenerate
as part of an inflammatory response.
He said the study suggests that progenitor cells exist in the adult
pancreas of mice and they can be induced to make new insulin-
producing cells.
Now scientists must look for these same cells in human adults, and
find a way to activate them that does not involve injury to the
pancreas.
But if they could figure out how to generate large numbers of beta
cells this way, they might be used as beta-cell transplants.
"The most important challenge now is to extrapolate our findings to
patients with diabetes," he said
But, he added, "There is a long way to go before we can talk about a
potential cure."
Type-1 diabetes affects an estimated 5 to 10 percent of the 20
million Americans with diabetes. Also called juvenile diabetes, it
has different causes from the more common type-2 diabetes that is
linked with obesity, poor diet and a lack of exercise.
Type-1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, caused by the mistaken
destruction of insulin-producing cells. Most type-1 diabetics must
take insulin daily to control their blood sugar levels.
(Editing by Maggie Fox and Cynthia Osterman)
http://www.reuters.
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