Research Alert
In insulin-dependent diabetes, the islet β cells do not produce enough insulin and the patients must receive exogenous insulin to control blood sugar. However, there are still many deficiencies in exogenous insulin supplementation. Therefore, the replacement of destroyed functional β cells with insulin-secreting cells derived from functional stem cells is a good idea as a new therapeutic idea. This review introduces the development schedule of mouse and human embryonic islets. The differences between mouse and human pancreas embryo development were also listed. Accordingly to the different sources of stem cells, the important research achievements on the differentiation of insulin-secreting β cells of stem cells and the current research status of stem cell therapy for diabetes were reviewed. Stem cell replacement therapy is a promising treatment for diabetes, caused by defective insulin secretion, but there are still many problems to be solved, such as the biosafety and reliability of treatment, the emergence of tumors during treatment, untargeted differentiation and autoimmunity, etc. Therefore, further understanding of stem cell therapy for insulin is needed.
Key Words: Diabetes mellitus, Stem cell therapy, Transplantation, β cell, Differentiation
Core Tip: Diabetes mellitus is one of the major health problems. Although traditional treatments such as exogenous insulin injection can relieve diabetes to a certain extent, they have failed to achieve a radical cure. Stem cell replacement therapy is a promising treatment for diabetes. So in this review, we introduce the development schedule of mouse and human embryonic islets and summarize the important research progressions in stem cell therapy for diabetes.
- Citation: Yang L, Hu ZM, Jiang FX, Wang W. Stem cell therapy for insulin-dependent diabetes: Are we still on the road? World J Stem Cells 2022; 14(7): 503-512
- URL: https://www.wjgnet.com/1948-0210/full/v14/i7/503.htm
- DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4252/wjsc.v14.i7.503
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