Study of a Spanish scientist

Study of a Spanish scientist

Diabetes could be corrected by a cell regeneration.

Diabetes patients can be in luck after a study has taken a great step in the regeneration of cells that produce insulin.This would occur thanks to a "cell reprogramming" that could help correct diabetes.

2010-04-05

Information offered by quo.es

Diabetes is a disorder of metabolism in which insulin (which allows glucose to enter cells) is not produced by pancreas (type I) or body cells do not respond to the insulin that it produces (type II).

A recent research, published in the Nature magazine and carried out by the Spanish scientist Pedro Herrera at the University of Geneva has taken a great step in the regeneration of the cells that produce insulin.

Through a diabetic transgenic mouse model, Herrera has discovered how beta cells, insulin producers can reappear in adults from a population of mature pancreatic cells of a different type.The discovery would allow to develop a new regenerative therapy to correct diabetes.

Herrera's team has discovered that “the adult mouse pancreas has the ability to partially regenerate beta cells (insulin producers) after having almost completely lost them (as in a diabetic child).This is already surprising, ”says Herrera himself.

Its discovery implies that new beta cell formation is made from other cells.The conclusion of the researcher, after different trials, is that “a fraction of the cells that produce another pancreatic hormone, the glucagon (with effects opposed to those of insulin), they become spontaneously into insulin producing cells.This is a reprogramming or cell transdifferentiation process not directly induced that, once completely understood, it could be useful for developing regenerative therapy and correcting diabetes. ”

This plasticity that the pancreas possesses could be used to develop new diabetes treatments because so far it had not been considered that alpha cells (glucagon producers) could be a potential source of cells for regenerative therapy in diabetics.
This spontaneous cell conversion of Alfa in Beta, related to a process called ‘cell reprogramming’ or ‘transdifferentiation’, is observed only after the almost total loss of insulin producing cells.According to Herrera's research team, the amount of beta cells destroyed determines whether regeneration will take place."And it also influences the degree of cell plasticity and the regenerative resources of the pancreas in adult individuals," reports Herrera.

These findings allow us to think about cell plasticity in other organs and diverse diseases, including cancer.

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