Abstract:

BACKGROUND: How to cure type 1 continuous development diabetes completely has received wide attention in the medical field all over the world. Recently, with the understanding of stem cells and the continuous development of the stem cell therapy for type 1 diabetes has become a research hotspot.
OBJECTIVE: To review the research progress addressing stem cells for type 1 diabetes.
METHODS: A computer based search was conducted in PubMed database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed) for relevant articles published from January 1997 to June 2009, with key words “type 1 diabetes, embryonic stem cells, pancreatic stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, hematopoietic stem cells” in English. Simultaneously, an additional research was performed in Chinese Journal Full-text database (http://www.wanfangdata.com.cn) for articles published from January 1997 to June 2009 with the key words of “type 1 diabetes, embryonic stem cells, pancreatic stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells hematopoietic stem cells” in Chinese. A total of 134 documents were retrieved.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Type 1 diabetes is T cell-mediated destruction of pancreatic β cells in autoimmune diseases, which needs exogenous insulin to control blood sugar. There is no cure for it. Stem cells are a class of pluripotent cells and can be induced to differentiate into insulin-producing cells, and stem cells have become the search for alternatives to β-cells induced by the new resources. Currently, stem cell research can be divided into embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are mostly studied in animals, and proliferation and differentiation under in vivo environment are not easily controlled. Embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos, so ethics is not widely recognized, which limits clinical research. Adult stem cell research mainly addresses pancreatic stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells and hematopoietic stem cells. Pancreatic stem cell has unclear surface markers, and is characterized by difficult harvest, not easy to capture and difficult purification in the clinic. Mesenchymal stem cells are rich to be harvested, but its cross-mesoderm differentiation is still controversial, and the function maintenance time of the differentiated cells in vivo is uncertain. Hematopoietic stem cell, the most mature adult stem cells, is of the most extensive application; it is not only from rich source, easy to collect, but also inhibits rejection, has wide application and will be of a hot focus in type 1 diabetes research.