Mouse pancreatic stem cells successfully differentiate into insulin producing cells

“Diabetes is one of the most serious and prevalent metabolic diseases,” said study co-author Dr. Hiroshi Yukawa, Department of Advanced Medicine in Biotechnology and Robotics, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine. “Islet cell transplantation has proven effective, however this strategy requires sufficient organ donors.”

Given the shortage of donors, the researchers investigated factors that could impact on the expansion and differentiation of pancreatic stem cells (PSCs) into insulin-producing cells using combinations of varieties of transcription factors and the SeV mouse virus to carry the cells, thus increasing the number of functional islet cells available for transplantation.

SeV vectors, said the researchers, are superior to conventional virus vectors because “they do not go through a DNA phase” and can introduce foreign genes without toxicity into a variety of cell types.

The combination of transcription factors that produced the greatest impact on the differentiation of PSCs into insulin cells was Pdx-1 (Pancreatic and duodenal homeobox 1), NeuroD (neurogenic differentiation) and MafA (musculoaponeurotic fibrosarcoma oncogene A). “Our data suggest that the transduction of transcription factors using SeV vectors facilitates mPSCs differentiation into insulin producing cells and showed the possibility of regenerating B-cells by using transduced PSCs,” concluded the researchers.

This research was among those studies presented at the 37th Annual Meeting of the Japan Society for Organ Preservation and Medical Biology (JSOPMB). Sixteen studies were published in this special issue of CELL MEDICINE. The theme of the issue is “Organ/Cell Transplantation and Regenerative Medicine.”

Citation. Yukawa, H.; Noguchi, H.; Oishi, K.; Miyamoto, Y.; Inoue, M.; Hasegawa, M.; Hayashi, S. Differentiation of Mouse Pancreatic Stem Cells into Insulin-Producing Cells by Recombinant Sendai Virus-Mediated Gene Transfer Technology Cell Med. 3(1):51-61; 2012.
Contact: Hiroshi Yukawa, Immuno-therapy Research Group, Fundamental Research Department, Central R&D Laboratory, Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co., LTD
Tel: ++ 81-72-640-0114; Fax ++81-72-640-0118
Email: h.yukawa@kobayyashi.cp.jp
The editorial offices for CELL MEDICINE are at the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair, College of Medicine, the University of South Florida. Contact, David Eve, PhD. at cellmedicinect@gmail.com

News Release by Florida Science Communications.