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STEM CELLS

Improving human β-cell maturation in vitro

Nature Cell Biology volume 21, pages 119–121 (2019)Cite this article

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Patients with diabetes could benefit from cell-based insulin therapy, but the supply of human islet tissue is limited. A study now reports an approach in which human-pluripotent-stem-cell-derived islet β-cells are purified and re-aggregated to generate cells that more closely resemble mature human β-cells.

Worldwide, 422 million adults were living with diabetes in 20141. Type 1 diabetes, accounting for approximately 10% of disease cases, is characterized by complete insulin deficiency due to immune-mediated destruction of the pancreatic islet β-cells2. Type 2 diabetes arises from a complex deterioration of normal metabolic physiology that includes impaired insulin action and eventual loss of β-cell function3. Insulin injection therapy is life-saving in type 1 diabetes, and becomes the last resort in long-term type 2 diabetes when other drugs fail to lower blood glucose. Pancreatic islet transplantation is an attractive alternative means of insulin replacement in diabetes because it allows hormone delivery in response to changes in the levels of blood glucose and other physiologic regulators4. However, isolation of cadaveric human islets by a handful of specialized centres provides tissue for only a fraction of patients in need. This gap in cell supply has stimulated intensive research on guided differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) into islet β-cells. In this issue of Nature Cell Biology, Nair et al. have introduced an inventive step in β-cell differentiation protocols in which β-cell-like cells are purified from a partially differentiated cell population and re-aggregated, resulting in generation of cells with enhanced maturation profiles5.

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Fig. 1: An improved protocol for human stem cell to β-cell differentiation in vitro.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sarah W. Stedman Nutrition and Metabolism Center, Duke Molecular Physiology Institute, Department of Pharmacology & Cancer Biology and Department of Medicine, Endocrine Division, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

    Hans E. Hohmeier, Jie An & Christopher B. Newgard

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  1. Hans E. Hohmeier
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  2. Jie An
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  3. Christopher B. Newgard
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Correspondence to Christopher B. Newgard.

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Hohmeier, H.E., An, J. & Newgard, C.B. Improving human β-cell maturation in vitro. Nat Cell Biol 21, 119–121 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41556-019-0277-6

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