Issue 112 Item 18 Special Cell Prevents Diabetes

In studies they have found a special type of dendritic cell that kills the T cells and appears to prevent diabetes in mice. >In preclinical studies, a special type of dendritic cell that promotes the swift death of T cells appears to prevent diabetes in mice. A genetically engineered version of these dendritic cells may serve as a potential therapy for diabetics.

In diabetes, the T cells of the patient’s own immune system invade and destroy the body’s insulin-producing cells, the islets of Langerhans. Usually, T cells do not attack a foreign antigen unless dendritic cells first identify and present the antigen to the T cells.

Unlike most dendritic cells, which originate in bone marrow, the special dendritic cell, B220+, originates in the liver. It causes T cells to die by apoptosis instead of causing them to proliferate.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh (PA, USA) treated diabetic-prone laboratory mice with B220+ dendritic cells, while a group of control mice received no treatment. The untreated mice all developed diabetes within 20 weeks. In contrast, those mice treated with the B220+ dendritic cells had still not developed diabetes.

"These results are very exciting, but perhaps it may not be so feasible to develop a therapy for humans that involve cells obtained from the liver," said Lina Lu, M.D., research associate professor of surgery at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute at the university. "So, in other studies we are using a gene therapy approach to see if we can give bone marrow-derived dendritic cells the same qualities as the B220+DC." Thus far, the results of those studies indicate the modified dendritic cell can significantly delay the onset of diabetes in diabetes-prone mice