利用成体干细胞治疗糖尿病

糖尿病是一类严重的代谢疾病, 正危害着世界上越来越多人口的健康。胰岛移植是一种治疗糖尿病的有效方法,却因供体缺乏和移植后免疫排斥问题制约了其广泛应用。干细胞为具有强增殖能力和多向分化潜能的细胞, 是利用细胞替代疗法治疗重大疾病的细胞来源之一, 其中成体干细胞因不存在致瘤性及伦理道德问题而被人们寄予厚望。成体胰腺干细胞在活体损伤及离体培养条件下均能产生胰岛素分泌细胞, 肝干细胞、骨髓干细胞和肠干细胞等在特定离体培养条件下或经过遗传改造后也均可产生胰岛素分泌细胞, 将这些干细胞来源的胰岛素分泌细胞移植到模型糖尿病小鼠中可以治疗糖尿病。因而, 成体干细胞可以为细胞替代疗法治疗糖尿病提供丰富的胰岛供体来源。

Progress in Treating Diabetes Mellitus with Adult Stem Cells

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic diseases, mainly including type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Treatment for type 1 and part of type 2 often involves regular insulin injection. However, this treatment neither precisely controls the blood sugar levels, nor prevents the diabetes complications. Transplantation of islets of Langerhans offers an attractive strategy for diabetes therapies, but its wide application has been limited by donor shortage and immunological rejection after transplantation. Stem cells with strong proliferation capacity and multipotential may be potential cell sources in diabetes therapies. For this, adult stem cells are interesting because of absence of teratoma formation and ethnical problems. Adult pancreatic stem cells (PSCs) really exist and could produce insulin-secreting cells both under the condition of pancreatic injury and in vitro culture, but lack of effective markers to enrich PSCs hampers the studies of exploring the expanding and differentiating conditions in vitro. Some other adult stem cells, such as hepatic stem cells, marrow stem cells or intestine stem cells, were also suggested to transdifferentiate into insulin-producing cells under special culture conditions in vitro or by genetic modifications. Moreover, transplanting these adult stem cells-derived insulin-secreting cells into the diabetic mouse could cure diabetes. Thus, adult stem cells would supply the abundant beta-cell sources for cell replacement therapy of diabetes