Adult stem cells from human cord umbilical cord blood successfully engineered to make insulin

Embryonic stem cells have been engineered to produce cardiac, neural, blood, lung and liver progenitor cells that perform many of the functions needed to help replace cells and tissues injured by many diseases, the paper notes. Among the insights into cell and tissue engineering gained from work with embryonic stem cells, it adds, are those "relevant to the engineering of functional equivalents of pancreatic, islet-like, glucose-responsive, insulin-producing cells to treat diabetes."

The researchers said they tested adult stem cells in the laboratory to ensure that they were predisposed to divide. Then they used a previously successful method in which complex signals produced by the embryonic mouse pancreas were used to direct adult stem cells to begin developing, or "differentiating," into islet-like cells.

As they grew these adult stem cells in the laboratory, the researchers conducted other tests in which the cells to be engineered showed evidence of a characteristic, or marker, known as SSEA-4 that was previously thought to exist only in embryonic cells. They also found that, just as embryonic cells have been shown to do, these adult stem cells produced both C-peptide, a part of the insulin precursor protein, and insulin itself. Confirming the presence of the C-peptide was especially crucial, the researchers suggested, because although insulin is often found in the growth media with which the cells are nurtured and is often taken up by such cells, the presence of the C-peptide proves that at least some of the insulin was produced, or synthesized, by the engineered cells.

In addition to Denner , Urban, Forraz and McGuckin, other co-authors of the study — entitled "Directed engineering of umbilical cord blood stem cells to produce C-peptide and Insulin" — include Yvonne Bodenberg, Jiangang Zhao, Margaret Howe and Ronald G. Tilton, all of UTMB’s Stark Diabetes Center and McCoy Diabetes Mass Spectrometry Research Laboratory; Julie Cappo, formerly of UTMB and now of the Institut Universitaire de Technologie, Montpellier, France; and John A. Copland of the Department of Cancer Biology, Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, Jacksonville, Florida.

Crediting the generous donors who supported the research, Urban said, "This body of work would never have occurred without support from the Emmett and Miriam McCoy Foundation of San Marcos." He said the researchers were also grateful for a grant advancing the research from the Clayton Foundation for Research of Houston.

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