IDIBAPS researchers and the University of Barcelona have led a study that identifies a protein as a potential modulating of the revascularization of pancreatic islets in type 1 diabetes.
As reported on Wednesday, IDIBAPS in a statement, the pancreatic islet transplant (cells of cells that are responsible for producing hormones such as insulin and glucagon) is a strategy that is used for the treatment of type 1 diabetes.
Researchers have demonstrated in transplanted diabetic mice with islets from other animals or human isletCells are viable and there is a recovery of normal sugar levels and glucose tolerance.
The study has been coordinated by Ramon Gomis, head of the group "Pancreatic Islets: Biomarkers and Function" of IDIBAPS, Professor of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona, and by Rosa Gasa, researcher of the same group.
The first author of the work, which has already been published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, is Hugo Figueiredo, a researcher at the IDIBAPS group.
One of the strategies used for the treatment of type 1 diabetes, based on regenerative medicine, is the transplantation of pancreatic islets, clusters formed by different types of cells with endocrine function that produce hormones such as insulin and glucagon.
In type 1 diabetes beta cells, which are responsible for insulin production, are selectively destroyed by an autoimmune process.
It is for this reason that the islet transplant can restore physiological function in patients with this type of diabetes.
Ramon Gomis, coordinator of the study, has considered that "although this transplant is done in some centers, it has some limitations, such as the chronic administration of immunosuppressants, and is applied in those cases in which the disease is poorly controlled."
Currently, "it is only indicated in the context of a kidney transplant and choose to make a double vascularized transplantation of kidney-pancreas," he said.
In the study, researchers have identified a molecular target that would allow transplanted pancreatic islets to be viable, and is an enzyme that is found in all cells, and also in pancreatic beta cells.
In diabetic mice, which have been transplanted islets of other human mice or islets, the results have shown that the inhibition of this enzyme, a phosphatase called PTP1B, causes greater revascularization, which translates into better functionality and survivalof the islets.
This happens both if the transplanted islets are mice as if they are human islets, the researchers have specified.
Gomis has assured that "this article constitutes a proof of concept that can lead to one of the reasons that make the transplantation of pancreatic islets fail. There are inhibitors of PTPB-1 or less specific phosphatases and the next step will be to test these inhibitorsin the transplant of islets in humans and assess their success. "EFE.
