Stem Cell Therapy for Diabetes: Are We Close Enough?.

摘要

Over the last few decades, understanding of the mecha-nism of cellular development has increased tremen-dously. The knowledge of the potential of stem/pre-cursor cells in tissue engineering and cell therapy hasgained the popularity. In case of diabetes, the availabil-ity of the source of stem cells and the efficacy of theirisolation techniques for maximum yield of viable cellsto expand is an important issue which needs attention.Attempts to make beta cells from mouse embryonicstem cells (ES) and adult stem cells have been frus-trating in part because too much has been expectedtoo soon. The problem with ES cells are that it is notknown whether these cells are truly similar to normalbeta cells or not and ethical issues surrounding them.ES cells is a major concern. Current claims about dif-ferentiation / transdifferentiation of adult stem cells toinsulin producing cells has been demonstrated by manygroups. These adult stem cells are of enormous inter-est because of their general accessibility and lack ofethical issues. Also, adult stem cells are non immuno-compatible unless isolated from the same patientwhereas ethical and scientific issues surrounding em-bryonic and fetal stem cells hinder their widespreadimplementation. Therefore, much attention is now fo-cused on alternative sources of adult/postnatal stemcells.