Abstract
Replacement of insulin-producing cells represents an almost ideal treatment for patients with diabetes mellitus type 1. Transplantation of pancreatic islets of Langerhans--although successful in experienced centres--is limited by the lack of donor organs. Generation of insulin-producing cells from stem cells represents an attractive alternative. Stem cells with the potential to differentiate into insulin-producing cells include embryonic stem cells (ESC) as well as adult stem cells from various tissues including the pancreas, liver, central nervous system, bone marrow and adipose tissue. The use of human ESC is hampered by ethical concerns and the inability to create patient specific ESC with therapeutic cloning. Among adult stem cells mesenchymal stem cells appear to have a particular developmental plasticity ex vivo that include their ability to adopt a pancreatic endocrine phenotype. The present review summarises the current knowledge on the development of insulin-producing cells from stem cells with special emphasis on human mesenchymal stem cells isolated from the pancreas and adipose tissue.
Highlights
Diabetes mellitus is a debilitating metabolic disease caused by absent or insufficient insulin production from pancreatic b cells
Research with human embryonic stem cells (ESC) may help to decipher some crucial steps in development of pancreatic endocrine cells in vitro, since almost all data available on pancreas development were obtained from animal models
Stem/progenitor cells with the potential to differentiate into insulin-producing cells in vitro and/or in vivo were described in pancreatic islets [10,11,12], pancreatic ducts [13], among the population of pancreatic acinar cells [14,15,16] and within adult or foetal pancreas without further specification [17,18,19]
Summary
Replacement of insulin-producing cells represents an almost ideal treatment for patients with diabetes mellitus type 1. Generation of insulin-producing cells from stem cells represents an attractive alternative. Stem cells with the potential to differentiate into insulin-producing cells include embryonic stem cells (ESC) as well as adult stem cells from various tissues including the pancreas, liver, central nervous system, bone marrow and adipose tissue. The use of human ESC is hampered by ethical concerns and the inability to create patient specific ESC with therapeutic cloning. Among adult stem cells mesenchymal stem cells appear to have a particular developmental plasticity ex vivo that include their ability to adopt a pancreatic endocrine phenotype. The present review summarises the current knowledge on the development of insulin-producing cells from stem cells with special emphasis on human mesenchymal stem cells isolated from the pancreas and adipose tissue
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