Diabetes has become the most rapidly growing chronic disease, and its incidence increasing faster than other chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer. Creative Bioarray have established a strategy to efficiently convert urine-derived cells into insulin-secreting β cells, providing technical support for researchers to develop new approaches to treat diabetes.
Introduction
β cells are the major cells in the islet of Langerhans of the pancreas and have a key role in the storage and release of the hormone insulin to maintain glucose homeostasis. Abnormalities in the normal function of β cells lead to type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM), in which the islets are totally destroyed by the patient's own immune system (autoimmune response), or type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), in which patients are failing to respond to insulin because of insulin resistance and insufficient production. The concern is that the incidence of DM is increasing rapidly. Therefore, there is a need to develop alternative therapies for DM that are less invasive and more effective than the current standard treatment options.
In a recent report, a team of researchers at Harvard University have generated fully mature glucose-responsive β cells from human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and human iPSCs. In addition, insulin-secreting β cells have been generated from other stem cell types (e.g. rat and human neural stem cells) or induced from human fibroblasts using a small molecule inducer, called 5-azacytidine (AzaC). Induction of stem cells and/or immature cell types from mature cells offers the potential to generate therapeutically significant cells from readily available and relatively noninvasive sources of autologous cells.
Fig.1 Langerhans is responsible for the endocrine function of the pancreas.
Our Strategies
Creative Bioarray provides clients with services to induce urine-derived cells into β cells, and our strategy includes：
- Providing urine-derived cells and inducing transdifferentiation of urine-derived cells into β cells in multiple steps by induction culture medium containing effective amounts of at least one small molecule reprogramming factor(s).
- Generating iPS cells from urine-derived cells by multiple strategies such as induction of small molecule compounds, induction of reprogramming transcription factors, followed by inducing the generation of β cells by cell differentiation services.
Applications
- Study on liver reconstruction
- Development of diabetes therapy
- Development of precision medicine
With a dedicated research team, Creative Bioarray provides a wide range of cell reprogramming services to clients around the world. The method we have established successfully converts urine cells into insulin-secreting β cells effectively, which has a promising future in the field of diabetes treatment. Please feel free to contact us if you are interested in our services.
Reference
- Manaph, N.P.A.; et al. Urine-derived cells for human cell therapy. Stem cell research & therapy. 2018, 9(1): 1-12.