Wharton's Jelly Mesenchymal Stem Cells for the Treatment of Type 1 Diabetes

Abstract

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease caused by the destruction of endocrine pancreas β cells by T lymphocytes, for which genetic and environmental risk factors have been proposed. Patients require daily infusions of recombinant insulin to overcome the reduced production by their own cells, but there is an increasing demand for a permanent and efficient supplementation which could better modulate the need for the hormone during the normal activities. For this reason, transplant-based therapeutic models have been proposed such as whole organ transplantation and Langerhans islets transplantation. These techniques are limited by many factors such as the lack of donors, the risks linked to the surgical practice, and the rejection reactions of the transplanted organ. Further opportunities may come from the research on stem cells. Multiple studies showed that multiple populations of stem cells may be differentiated toward pancreatic endocrine-like ones, which may express insulin in vitro ...