【Animal Experiment】-Cultivate mouse pancreas in rats to treat mouse diabetes once and for all

  Researchers have successfully treated type 1 diabetic mice by transplanting pancreatic tissue into mice. These transplanted pancreatic tissues were grown from stem cells taken from healthy mice in rats. They managed to control the blood sugar levels of mice for more than a year without the help of other drugs. This also means that diabetic mice have successfully undergone pancreatic tissue transplantation without the use of immunosuppressive drugs. According to research, this technology is expected to be used in the treatment of human diseases and is expected to increase the success rate of various organ transplants.

  Type I diabetes is caused by the immune system, which destroys certain cells of the pancreas, such as the islet cells that produce insulin. Without insulin, it is difficult for the body to transmit blood sugar to tissue cells. Therefore, diabetics need regular insulin injections to monitor blood sugar levels and ensure body stability. But scientists are looking for longer-lasting methods than insulin injections to solve the problems caused by diabetes. In the 1970s, scientists discovered several populations of pancreatic islet cells successfully transplanted into laboratory mice, encouraging people to transplant pancreatic tissue into diabetic patients. However, although some progress made in recent years has made the transplanted cells live longer, the process of achieving clinical application is long and tortuous.

  So far, these transplants still require lifelong anti-rejection drugs. However, if the body treats foreign islet cells as its own cells, these rejection inhibitors can be avoided. Now, scientists have discovered how to hide the irrelevant characteristics of these strange organizations to achieve this goal. according to

  According to a report in Journalature, scientists from Stanford University and the University of Tokyo can replace the pancreas with pluripotent stem cells to successfully obtain a successful transplant without using life-long immunosuppressive drugs. I found that there is. During the transplantation process, after the tissue is transplanted to a new individual, some "tags" on the tissue enable the body to recognize that these tissues are from other individuals and generate an immune response. Reason Pluripotent stem cells are cells that have not yet clearly differentiated. Some "tags" in these cells can be removed by cell engineering methods, so it is impossible for these cells to show foreign bodies after they grow into other tissues of the human body.

  Therefore, tissue cultured with pluripotent stem cells is an ideal transplant material. In order to transform these pluripotent stem cells into pancreatic tissue, these scientists transplanted mouse stem cells into rat embryos without pancreas. As rats grow, these mouse cells must be used to produce new pancreas. After injecting these stem cells into rats, their bodies retain these mouse stem cells as their own tissues because the rats have not yet formed their own immune system. When the rat’s own pancreatic tissue grew, the original islet cells were transplanted into the kidneys of diabetic mice. This process resulted in the transplantation of approximately hundreds of thousands of cells. One year after transplantation, pancreatic cells grown in the rat successfully controlled the blood sugar level of the recipient (mice). At the same time, scientists discovered that transplantation of as many as 100 islet cells may be successful.

  aka scientist Nakauchi said: “In addition, the transplanted animals only need to take immunosuppressive drugs 5 days after transplantation, not continuous immunosuppression, as if their organ transplants do not match. This is a big step forward, because the A method to reduce the risk of rejection is very important for any organ transplantation. Due to the lack of organ donors, people urgently need tissues that can grow into transplantable organs to meet the needs of organs. This is also the technology of laboratory tissue culture and transplantation. A breakthrough. Not only does it bring good news to most diabetics, but it can also help other opportunities that require tissue or organ transplants.