Editing Beta cell (section)

=== Type 1 diabetes ===

Research has shown that beta cells can be differentiated from human pancreas progenitor cells.<ref name="Afelik_2017">{{cite journal | vauthors = Afelik S, Rovira M | title = Pancreatic β-cell regeneration: Facultative or dedicated progenitors? | journal = Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology | volume = 445 | pages = 85–94 | date = April 2017 | pmid = 27838399 | doi = 10.1016/j.mce.2016.11.008 | s2cid = 21795162 }}</ref> These differentiated beta cells, however, often lack much of the structure and markers that beta cells need to perform their necessary functions.<ref name="Afelik_2017" /> Examples of the anomalies that arise from beta cells differentiated from progenitor cells include a failure to react to environments with high glucose concentrations, an inability to produce necessary beta cell markers, and abnormal expression of glucagon along with insulin.<ref name="Afelik_2017" />

In order to successfully re-create functional insulin producing beta cells, studies have shown that manipulating cell-signal pathways in early stem cell development will lead to those stem cells differentiating into viable beta cells.<ref name="Afelik_2017" /><ref name="Mahla_2016" /> Two key signal pathways have been shown to play a vital role in the differentiation of stem cells into beta cells: the BMP4 pathway and the kinase C.<ref name="Mahla_2016" /> Targeted manipulation of these two pathways has shown that it is possible to induce beta cell differentiation from stem cells.<ref name="Mahla_2016" /> These variations of artificial beta cells have shown greater levels of success in replicating the functionality of natural beta cells, although the replication has not been perfectly re-created yet.<ref name="Mahla_2016" />

Studies have shown that it is possible to regenerate beta cells ''in vivo'' in some animal models.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Jeon K, Lim H, Kim JH, Thuan NV, Park SH, Lim YM, Choi HY, Lee ER, Kim JH, Lee MS, Cho SG | title = Differentiation and transplantation of functional pancreatic beta cells generated from induced pluripotent stem cells derived from a type 1 diabetes mouse model | journal = Stem Cells and Development | volume = 21 | issue = 14 | pages = 2642–2655 | date = September 2012 | pmid = 22512788 | pmc = 3438879 | doi = 10.1089/scd.2011.0665 }}</ref> Research in mice has shown that beta cells can often regenerate to the original quantity number after the beta cells have undergone some sort of stress test, such as the intentional destruction of the beta cells in the mice subject or once the auto-immune response has concluded.<ref name="Afelik_2017" /> While these studies have conclusive results in mice, beta cells in human subjects may not possess this same level of versatility. Investigation of beta cells following acute onset of Type 1 diabetes has shown little to no proliferation of newly synthesized beta cells, suggesting that human beta cells might not be as versatile as rat beta cells, but there is actually no comparison that can be made here because healthy (non-diabetic) rats were used to prove that beta cells can proliferate after intentional destruction of beta cells, while diseased (type-1 diabetic) humans were used in the study which was attempted to use as evidence against beta cells regenerating.<ref>Lam, Carol & Jacobson, Daniel & Rankin, Matthew & Cox, Aaron & Kushner, Jake. (2017). β Cells Persist in T1D Pancreata Without Evidence of Ongoing β-Cell Turnover or Neogenesis. The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism. 102. 10.1210/jc.2016-3806.</ref>

It appears that much work has to be done in the field of regenerating beta cells.<ref name="Mahla_2016">
{{cite journal | vauthors = Mahla RS | title = Stem Cells Applications in Regenerative Medicine and Disease Therapeutics | journal = International Journal of Cell Biology | volume = 2016 | issue = 7 | pages = 6940283 | year = 2016 | pmid = 27516776 | pmc = 4969512 | doi = 10.1155/2016/6940283 | doi-access = free }}</ref> Just as in the discovery of creating insulin through the use of recombinant DNA, the ability to artificially create stem cells that would differentiate into beta cells would prove to be an invaluable resource to patients with Type 1 diabetes. An unlimited amount of beta cells produced artificially could potentially provide therapy to many of the patients who are affected by Type 1 diabetes.