Interspecies Transplant Paves the Way for Diabetes Therapy

Voice of America ^ | July 20, 2013 | Jessica Berman

[neverdem]

Researchers have come closer to the “Holy Grail” of treatment for people with type 1 diabetes. They have successfully transplanted insulin-producing islet cells from one species into another without the use of immunity-suppressing drugs. In the future this could provide an unlimited supply of tissue to treat people whose bodies cannot produce insulin.

Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that delivers glucose - a form of sugar that the body uses for fuel - to cells for energy. Since the immune systems of people with type 1 diabetes attack and destroy the islet cells that produce insulin, many sufferers must inject themselves with insulin frequently, simply in order to survive.

It has long been a goal of scientists to transplant islets into humans - from other humans or pigs - without their bodies rejecting them. Human cadaver transplants are difficult, while animal-to-human transplants have proved nearly impossible.

Now, investigators at Northwestern University in Illinois have carried out a successful interspecies islet cell transplant, from rats into mice, without the lifelong use of anti-rejection medications, which carry significant side effects and risks, including cancer.

The study's lead author, Xunrong Luo, head of the Northwestern medical school's human islet cell transplantation program, said the transplanted rat cells produced insulin in the mice for more than 300 days.

“They survived essentially indefinitely. So they continued to produce insulin without the need of any immunosuppression and [the cells] just continued to maintain normal glucose levels in these diabetic mice,” she said.

The mice were prepared for transplant by taking white blood cells from a rat’s spleen, which is part of the immune system, and bathing them in chemicals that put the cells into a sleeping state known as programmed cell death.  

The altered cells were injected into mice. They entered the rodents’ spleen and liver but were soon mopped up [gathered, and destroyed ] by scavenger cells called macrophages, which recognized the sleeping rat cells as waste. In that process, fragments of the rat spleen cells wound up on the surface of the macrophages. This "trained" [conditioned] the mouse's immune-system T cells to accept islet cells, which researchers successfully transplanted seven days later.

“So we are pretty excited about that, because our next step is to see if we can translate this into [a] larger step, into larger animals,” she said.

Luo says her team now will try to transplant pig cells into monkeys. Her ultimate goal is to be able to tap into an unlimited supply of pig islet cells for transplants into people with type 1 diabetes.  

An article on interspecies transplants of insulin-producing islet cells appears in the journal Diabetes.

[neverdem]

Transient B Cell Depletion Combined with Apoptotic Donor Splenocytes Induces Xeno-specific T and B cell Tolerance to Islet Xenografts.

[Gamecock]

Lewis Grizzard on having a porcine valve implant “Every afternoon I get an uncontrollable urge to go outside and make love in the mud.”

[American in Israel]

And, it could be the source of the new Ebola.

But heck, what difference does that make. Now you can sell animal parts for Human prices! We will all be rich! BWAhahaha...

No, seriesly, this is a hugh step for scientwists.

[American in Israel]

Oh, just to tweak the Scientwists on site, look into Vitamin D therapy for Diabetes. Not yet approved by the FDA , but in the paperwork so in three to five years it will be a wonderful scientist discovery.

Till then its voodoo.

[American in Israel]

And since I am on a roll (too much caffeine):

What is the difference between a lumpectomy and a biopsy?

$100,000.00 bucks in chemotherapy.

Why else is it illegal to do a lumpectomy before the biopsy? Why not do the biopsy on the lump AFTER you take it out instead of making it a law to do the biopsy before you take it out?

$100,000.00 bucks in chemotherapy. Oh, you guessed...

[gaijin]

Porcine Islet Cells for EVERYONE in Mecca and Medina...!!!

yaaaaay...!

^_^

[neverdem]

There have been many papers finding low levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the test that’s ordered, and an increased risk of developing type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

[kruss3]

I believe your intentions are entirely benign, but your repetitive postings on every inane life sciences related topic (without an opinion by you)is tiresome. This is especially true with this topic. Type one diabetics have a long list of comorbidities that shorten their lives. The more insulin they use, the shorter their life expectancy will be. Restoring insulin delivery is necessary to facilitate minimal glucose and amino acid uptake....but only to a point. The extra insulin mediates the uploading of excess intracellular that will ultimately cause heart disease, cancer or strokes. Elimination of the excess intracellular iron in the beta cells will likely restore insulin production and eliminate exogenous insulin dependency.

[American in Israel]

Read a paper that showed a high remission rate achieved by raising the vitamin D level in the blood. Amazing stuff for type 1!

And a whole lot cheaper than a pig pancreas transplant.

Interesting post, but beware of the Scientwists!

[American in Israel]

kruss, it is a very bad idea to put your email in the tag lines. Scan bots will harvest your email and sell it to a thousand spam mail people.

[American in Israel]

What causes the excess intercellular iron and how would you eliminate it?

[tet68]

Her ultimate goal is to be able to tap into an unlimited supply of pig islet cells for transplants into people

At last a vaccine against Islam...

[American in Israel]

Is there a direct biochemical reaction that causes iron loading with artificial insulin and why does this problem not show with natural insulin? Or is there an external cause of the iron loading that might be an indication of another problem?

I am quite curious about diabetes as I have a good friend that has issues.

[American in Israel]

I think islam has more to do with brain and heart transplants...

[kruss3]

Excess intracellular iron is the product of a low sweat lifestyle. Sweat eliminates a huge amount of iron. Fructose is the product of a plant conspiracy to facilitate extra fat accumulation (they survive the starvation of winter) in small furry animals that distribute seeds for the plants. Fructose depletes your liver of the copper that is necessary for a protein (ceruloplasmin) that mediates the export of excess intracellular iron. Mixing meat proteins at mealtime with dark green leafy vegetables
increases the iron absorption from the green leafy vegetables by a very large percentage: maybe as much as 500%.

To reduce iron you can donate blood, drink green and coffee at meals, take iron chelators like inositol, green coffee bean extract, wheat grass juice extract, curcumin and segregate your meals.

[kruss3]

The source of insulin is not an issue. The amount of the insulin mediated iron absorption is the critical matter. The higher levels of ambient insulin levels prevent fat burning, turn glucose into triglycerides, and increase the rate of excess intracellular iron loading that is the underlying cause of virtually all of the inflammatory/degenerative disease. Fat people are insulin resistant and have significantly higher levels of ambient insulin sloshing around than do skinny young athletes.

[neverdem]

I believe your intentions are entirely benign, but your repetitive postings on every inane life sciences related topic (without an opinion by you)is tiresome.

Your fixation an excess iron storage is just as tiresome when there's a wealth of autoimmune reactions in type 1 diabetes and latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, LADA.

I post stories from the general press. If that story or a press release doesn't link the abstract, I try to find and link it.

I can't type, and my eyesight isn't that great. I'm not that interested in stating my opinions.

[101stAirborneVet]

Whoa, whoa, just kidding. It's just that I have no idea wth either of you are arguing about so, to make up for my inadequacy, I post this.

Thanks for listening. I'm gonna slowly back out of this thread now.

[kruss3]

The wealth of info you refer includes a significant amount of misleading information that can be damaging. This week
google repeats a silly study on omega 3 fish oil that proposes to connect fish oil with prostate cancer. Many smart people will blunder into reducing omega 3 in their supplementation efforts because of this publication.
Inuits from the early 1900’s have had the highest fish oil consumption among humans. During that era they had almost zero prostate cancer. When they immigrate to industrial societies/diets their prostate cancer approaches that of other industrialized diets. You can click on the links that follow.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2359466/Taking-omega-3-fish-oil-supplements-increase-risk-aggressive-prostate-cancer-70.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Alan+Kristal+omega+3

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19186765

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18214857

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14504206

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8813066

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6317154

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6933247

[American in Israel]

Thank you both very much. Very interesting thoughts that bring up other questions. Gonna have to percolate on this one (coffee is NOT a problem!)

Oh, crap, does that make me a nerd too!?

LOL
(Love FReepers!)