Neural stem cells for diabetes cell-based therapy

» Isolation and cultivation of pancreas stem cells as renewable sources of beta cells would be a major breakthrough. . . « Diabetes mellitus is a disorder resulting from lack of either production or action of insulin signalling. It affects more than 200 million people worldwide. There is no cure for diabetes and the patients rely on exogenous supply of insulin and/or oral use of hypoglycemic substances. Type I diabetes results from the destruction of pancreatic insulin-producing beta cells in the islets of Langerhans, usually through an autoimmune reaction, while type II diabetes is associated with dysfunctional beta cells. Thus, diabetes presents an ideal model for cell therapy, since it is the lack of a single defined cell type that is largely responsible for the disease pathology. Transplantation of isolated islets or entire pancreases from cadavers to replenish the lost beta cell pool has yielded some promising results. However, limited availability of the islets, side effects of continuous immunosuppressant administration and the logistics of finding suitable donors have proven major setbacks. In the absence of an ex vivo culture system to expand pancreatic progenitors, alternative sources of beta cells have attracted great attention (Mishra et al, 2010).