Type II Diabetes Cured in Mice

A research team at the University of Texas Health Science Center has cured Type I diabetes in mice, and believes the successful results suggest that the technique could be effective in individuals suffering from Type II diabetes as well. The methodology increases the number of pancreatic cells that secrete insulin.

While the ultimate goal is to begin human clinical trials within three years, the method must be evaluated in large-animals studies, which will precede FDA Investigational New Drug (IND) approval, Bruno Doiron, Ph.D., a co-inventor, said.

The therapy is based on the fact that the pancreas has a variety of different cell types, not just the insulin-secreting beta cells. Among other effects, insulin lowers blood sugar concentrations. In those persons suffering from Type I diabetes, the beta cells are destroyed by the immune system, and thus, the person has no insulin response to mediated blood sugar levels. Type II diabetes differs in that the beta cells have not been destroyed, but becomes less efficient both at secreting insulin and utilizing insulin. The research team altered non-insulin secreting cells in the pancreas to secrete insulin in response to the presence of sugar.

The research team involved in this study altered the genome of the pancreatic cells via virally-mediated gene transfer, wherein a virus is used a carrier to deliver and insert the genes of interest into the genome of the targeted pancreatic cells. In this case, the genes carried by the virus as associated with insulin production and the detection of sugar. Following the entry of the viral genome into the pancreatic cells, the genes are incorporated and cause the transfected cells to begin to secrete insulin.

Because the newly transformed cells are not pancreatic beta cells, the host immune system is not stimulated, and these now insulin-secreting populations of cells in the pancreas co-exist with the body’s immune system.

The research team noted that the therapy very precisely regulates blood sugar in mice, and likely represents a major advance over traditional insulin-based therapies as well as diabetes medications that can decrease blood sugar concentrations to dangerous levels if not closely monitored. The researchers further note that the altered cells match the characteristics of beta cells, wherein insulin is only released only in response to the presence of glucose.