Cell therapy research for Diabetes: Pancreatic β cell differentiation from pluripotent stem cells

The Potential and Challenges of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells in the Treatment of Diabetic Nephropathy

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is a prevalent complication of diabetes, with current treatment options offering limited effectiveness, particularly in advanced stages. Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), particularly induced PSCs (iPSCs), show promising potential in the treatment of DN due to their pluripotency, capacity for differentiation into kidney-specific cells, and suitability for personalized therapies. iPSC-based personalized approaches can effectively mitigate immune rejection, a common challenge with allogeneic transplants, thus enhancing therapeutic outcomes. Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) gene editing further enhances the potential of hPSCs by enabling the precise correction of disease-associated genetic defects, increasing both the safety and efficacy of therapeutic cells. In addition to direct treatment, hPSCs have proven valuable in disease modeling and drug screening, particularly for identifying and validating disease-specific targets. Kidney organoids derived from hPSCs replicate key features of DN pathology, making them useful platforms for validating therapeutic targets and assessing drug efficacy. Comparatively, both hPSCs and mesenchymal SCs (MSCs) have shown promise in improving renal function in preclinical models, with hPSCs offering broader differentiation capacity. Integration with tissue engineering technologies, such as three-dimensional bioprinting and bioengineered scaffolds, expands the regenerative potential of hPSCs by supporting the formation of functional renal structures and enhancing in vivo integration and regenerative capacity. Despite current challenges, such as tumorigenicity, genomic instability, and limited direct research, advances in gene editing, differentiation protocols, and tissue engineering promise to address these barriers. Continued optimization of these approaches will likely lead to successful clinical applications of hPSCs, potentially revolutionizing treatment options for DN.

Advanced therapy to cure diabetes: mission impossible is now possible?

Cell and Gene therapy are referred to as advanced therapies that represent overlapping fields of regenerative medicine. They have similar therapeutic goals such as to modify cellular identity, improve cell function, or fight a disease. These two therapeutic avenues, however, possess major differences. While cell therapy involves introduction of new cells, gene therapy entails introduction or modification of genes. Furthermore, the aim of cell therapy is often to replace, or repair damaged tissue, whereas gene therapy is used typically as a preventive approach. Diabetes mellitus severely affects the quality of life of afflicted individuals and has various side effects including cardiovascular, ophthalmic disorders, and neuropathy while putting enormous economic pressure on both the healthcare system and the patient. In recent years, great effort has been made to develop cutting-edge therapeutic interventions for diabetes treatment, among which cell and gene therapies stand out. This review aims to highlight various cell- and gene-based therapeutic approaches leading to the generation of new insulin-producing cells as a topmost "panacea" for treating diabetes, while deliberately avoiding a detailed molecular description of these approaches. By doing so, we aim to target readers who are new to the field and wish to get a broad helicopter overview of the historical and current trends of cell- and gene-based approaches in β-cell regeneration.

Single-cell sequencing: A promising approach for uncovering the characteristic of pancreatic islet cells in type 2 diabetes

Single-cell sequencing is a novel and rapidly advancing high-throughput technique that can be used to investigating genomics, transcriptomics, and epigenetics at a single-cell level. Currently, single-cell sequencing can not only be used to draw the pancreatic islet cells map and uncover the characteristics of cellular heterogeneity in type 2 diabetes, but can also be used to label and purify functional beta cells in pancreatic stem cells, improving stem cells and islet organoids therapies. In addition, this technology helps to analyze islet cell dedifferentiation and can be applied to the treatment of type 2 diabetes. In this review, we summarize the development and process of single-cell sequencing, describe the potential applications of single-cell sequencing in the field of type 2 diabetes, and discuss the prospects and limitations of single-cell sequencing to provide a new direction for exploring the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes and finding therapeutic targets.

Organ-Specific Differentiation of Human Adipose-Derived Stem Cells in Various Organs of Xenotransplanted Rats: A Pilot Study

Adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) are potential therapeutics considering their self-renewal capacity and ability to differentiate into all somatic cell types in vitro. The ideal ADSC-based therapy is a direct injection into the relevant organs. The objective of this study was to investigate the viability and safety of intra-organ human ADSC (h-ADSC) xenotransplants in vivo. Subcutaneous adipose tissue from the abdominal area of 10 patients was sampled. h-ADSCs were isolated from adipose tissue samples and identified using immunofluorescence antibodies. Multi-differentiation potential assays for adipocytes, osteocytes, and chondrocytes were performed. Cultured h-ADSCs at passage 4 were transplanted into multiple organs of 17 rats, including the skin, subcutaneous layer, liver, kidney, pancreas, and spleen. The h-ADSC-injected organs excised after 100 days were examined, and the survival of h-ADSCs was measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) using specific human and rat target genes. h-ADSCs confirmed by stem cell phenotyping were induced to differentiate into adipogenic, osteogenic, and chondrogenic lineages in vitro. All rats were healthy and exhibited no side effects during the study; the transplanted h-ADSCs did not cause inflammation and were indiscernible from the native organ cells. The presence of transplanted h-ADSCs was confirmed using qRT-PCR. However, the engrafted survival rates varied as follows: subcutaneous fat (70.6%), followed by the liver (52.9%), pancreas (50.0%), kidney (29.4%), skin (29.4%), and spleen (12.5%). h-ADSCs were successfully transplanted into a rat model, with different survival rates depending on the organ.