From: KutchScience
To: Dr naresh ; drmaltigupta@... ; drpddoshi19@... ;
drprpatel@... ; drsahai@... ; drskb@... ;
'Dr.H.L.Udeshi'
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 7:43 AM
Subject: Spleen may provide diabetes cure
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3266987.stm


Spleen may provide diabetes cure http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3266987.stm

Cells from the spleen can transform into insulin-producing cells, offering hope
of a cure for diabetes, say scientists.

US researchers were able to halt, and even reverse, the disease in mice. The
research offers hope to people with Type 1 diabetes who need insulin injections
to survive. The team from Massachusetts General Hospital, whose announcement
coincided with World Diabetes Day on Friday, hope to begin human trials soon.

Diabetes affects around 350,000 people in the UK, and 194 million around the
world. Type 1 diabetics do not produce insulin, needed to convert sugar into
fuel and normally produced in the pancreas in cells called islet cells. Their
islet cells are destroyed by the body's own immune system, leading to sugar
building up dangerously in the blood.

'Re-educating the immune system'

The US researchers had already shown that injecting diabetic mice with spleen
cells from healthy mice re-educated their immune systems so that they could
accept an islet cell transplant. But the mice unexpectedly began producing islet
cells that could secrete insulin themselves. This latest research found this
only happened if the mice had been given a specific type of spleen cell.

They can be distinguished from other spleen cells because they lack a particular
molecule called CD45. Scientists had believed it was impossible to regenerate
insulin-secreting islet cells. To double-check their findings, researchers
carried out the same treatment, giving female diabetic mice spleen cells from
healthy male cells. They found that in diabetic mice that achieved long-term
normal glucose metabolism, all of the new functioning islets had significant
numbers of cells with Y chromosomes, showing they had come from the male donors.

In a further experiment, donor spleen cells were marked with a fluorescent green
protein, and again these cells were found throughout the newly developed islets.

'Rescue' hope

Denis Faustman, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Immunobiology
Laboratory who led the research, said: "It's the cells without CD45 that are the
precursors for pancreatic islets. They have a distinct function that has not
previously been identified for the spleen." Dr David Nathan, director of the
hospital's Diabetes Center, added: "These exciting findings in a mouse model of
Type 1 diabetes suggest that patients who are developing this disease could be
rescued from further destruction of their insulin-producing cells. "In addition,
patients with fully established diabetes possibly could have their diabetes
reversed."

Dr Eleanor Kennedy, research director for Diabetes UK , said "The initial
results of this research are potentially very exciting for people with diabetes.
Reversing the onset of Type 1 diabetes by turning adult precursor cells from the
spleen into insulin-producing cells is a new approach. "Previously research has
concentrated on embryonic stem cells. This new breakthrough reopens the debate
on what other types of cells are capable of. This research is in the very early
stages and a lot more work still needs to be done. "Diabetes UK will be watching
the progress with interest."



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