[IPp] Human blood cells coaxed to produce insulin

[Rachel A <email @ redacted>]

 http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18624935.400Human blood cells
coaxed to produce insulin


 TANTALISING experiments that seem to have made human blood cells start
producing insulin have raised the prospect of a new treatment for diabetes.
Although the treatment has only been tried in mice so far, it might mean people
can be cured with implants of their own cells.

 But even the researcher whose team carried out the work says he will remain
sceptical until other groups have repeated it. "If it's true, it would be very
nice, but the data is very preliminary," cautions Bernat Soria, chairman of the
European Stem Cell Network.

 Juvenile-onset diabetes is caused by the immune system destroying the
insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. It can now be treated by
transplanting beta cells taken from cadavers, using a technique called the
Edmonton protocol. But many recipients suffer severe side effects because of the
drugs they have to take to prevent their immune systems rejecting the foreign
cells. Also, the supply of beta cells is limited - only 500 people have been
treated so far.

 Several teams around the world have now managed to derive insulin-producing
cells from human embryonic stem cells (ESCs). While this might one day end the
shortage of beta cells for transplantation, it is not a perfect solution.

 One problem is that there is no easy way to derive ESCs from individual
patients, so obtaining matching cells might not be possible and
immunosuppressant drugs would likely still be needed. And even if the beta cells
were a perfect match, without drugs they might still be destroyed by the same
autoimmune reaction that killed patients' original beta cells.
 It shouldn't matter if the blood cells really become beta cells as long as
they produce insulin in response to sugar levels

 Soria's team at the Institute of Bioengineering in Alicante, Spain, was the
first to obtain insulin-producing cells from mouse ESCs and is also working with
human ESCs. Recently, together with Fred Fandrich of the University of Kiel in
Germany, the team tried a different approach: exposing human white blood cells
to the same growth factors it had applied to mouse ESCs. It worked. "We
convinced white blood cells to produce insulin," Soria says.

 When the transformed cells were injected into diabetic mice, their blood sugar
levels returned to normal, Soria told a recent conference on stem cells in
Edinburgh, UK. After a week the effect disappeared, because the animals' immune
systems destroyed the human cells. The full results will appear soon in
Gastroenterology.

 The next step is to find out if insulin-producing cells can be derived from the
blood of people with diabetes, and if they will be stable after re-implantation.
One great advantage of the approach, if it works, is that white blood cells are
very easy to obtain.

 It is not yet clear whether the insulin-producing cells have actually become
beta cells or another cell type that has been persuaded to make insulin, says
Chris Burns of King's College London, who studies beta cells. This shouldn't
matter as long as the cells produce normal insulin in response to rising blood
sugar levels, he says. "If this is the case, then this would be a significant
advance." It could even be an advantage if the cells are not true beta cells, as
it means they might escape the autoimmune reaction that causes juvenile
diabetes.




 Rachel - email @ redacted"Standing in the park yesterday, I was wondering why
Frisbees look bigger & bigger the closer they get. Then, it hit me."

















































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