Scientists may have finally found a breakthrough that could potentially be used to treat type 1 diabetes. In a recent study, researchers were able to implant insulin-producing mouse skin cells in diabetic mice.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease characterized by the failure of the pancreas to produce insulin. Insulin is an important hormone that allows the body to extract energy from the food they eat. For currently unknown reasons, the body's immune system attacks and destroys the cells in the pancreas responsible for creating insulin. Medical researchers have long been looking for a way to treat the disease permanently and the recent breakthrough may be to key to finding a solution.
"I am particularly excited about the prospect of translating these findings to the human system," said the director of the University of California's Diabetes Center Matthias Hebrok, PhD.
Using fibroblast skin cells extracted from mice, researchers from the Gladstone Institutes and the University of California were able to create modified cells similar to the pancreatic cells responsible for producing insulin. The special skin cells were then transplanted into diabetic mice. After monitoring the glucose levels of the mice, the researchers were able to determine that the transplanted cells successfully produced insulin.
"This technology could significantly advance our understanding of how inherent defects in beta cells result in diabetes, bringing us closer to a much-needed cure," said Hebrok.
Current diabetes treatments revolve around using regular insulin injections to manage the disease. Moreover, patients diagnosed with the disease need to monitor their glucose levels carefully. While these treatments are effective in dealing with the short term effects of type 1 diabetes, a long term solution would involve replacing the destroyed pancreatic beta cells with new ones. However, this is easier said than done. While pancreatic transplants have been successfully completed in the past, patients would need to take immune suppressant medications to keep their immune systems from destroying the new beta cells. Immune suppressant can have dangerous long terms side effects. Moreover, finding donors for transplants can be difficult as well.
With the recent study however, the researchers opted to use skin cells. Due to the fact that the human skin is the largest organ in the body in terms of surface area, using skin cells modified with pancreatic beta cell-like properties is a novel approach to the problem.
