A global study from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, has discovered a pathway for the regeneration of insulin in pancreatic stem cells, a major advance towards new therapies to treat type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Using pancreatic stem cells from a type 1 diabetic donor, the researchers were able to effectively reactivate them to express insulin and functionally resemble beta-like cells by using a drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration but not currently licensed for the treatment of diabetes.
Although more work is required, in principle the new approach could replace the insulin-producing cells (beta cells) that are destroyed in type 1 diabetics with newborn insulin-producing cells.
The study, led by diabetes experts Professor Sam El-Osta, Dr Keith Al-Hasani and Dr Ishant Khurana from Monash’s Department of Diabetes, may lead to a potential treatment option for diabetes dependent on insulin that is diagnosed in seven Australian children each time. day resulting in lifelong blood glucose testing and daily insulin injections, to replace insulin no longer produced by a damaged pancreas.
As the number of diabetes cases worldwide approaches 500 million, researchers are scrambling for a limited group of treatments with unclear efficacy.
We consider the research novel and an important step forward toward the development of new therapies.”
Professor Sam El-Osta, Monash Department of Diabetes
To restore insulin expression in a damaged pancreas, researchers had to overcome a number of challenges, as the diabetic pancreas was often thought to be too damaged to heal.
The findings are now published in the journal Nature, Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy
According to Professor El-Osta, when an individual is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, most of their pancreatic beta cells, which produce insulin, have been completely destroyed. These studies show that “the diabetic pancreas is not incapable of expressing insulin” and proof-of-concept experiments “address unmet medical needs in type 1 diabetes.”
Advances in the genetics of diabetes have brought “greater understanding and, along with that, a resurgence of interest in the development of potential therapies,” Professor El-Osta said.
“Patients rely on daily injections of insulin to replace what the pancreas would have produced. Currently, the only other effective therapy requires pancreatic islet transplantation, and while this has improved people’s health outcomes with diabetes, transplantation depends on organ donors, so it has limited widespread use,” said Professor El-Osta.
Study co-author Dr. Al-Hasani says that as we face an aging population globally and the challenges of increasing numbers of type 2 diabetes, which is strongly correlated with the increase in obesity, the need for a cure for diabetes is becoming increasingly urgent. ” said Dr. Al-Hasani. “Before we reach patients, there are many problems to solve,” said Dr. Al-Hasani. “Further work is needed to define the properties of these cells and establish protocols to isolate and expand them. “, he added. “I think the therapy is quite a long way off, but this represents an important step on the way to devising a long-lasting treatment that can be applied to all types of diabetes.”
Professor El-Osta, Drs Al-Hasani and Khurana have developed a revolutionary method to regenerate insulin cells without the ethical concerns usually associated with embryonic stem cells.
Source:
Journal reference:
Al-Hasani, K., et al. (2022) Pancreatic EZH2 inhibition restores progenitor insulin in T1D donors. Signal transduction and targeted therapy. doi.org/10.1038/s41392-022-01034-7.