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Review
. 2023 Sep 18;11(9):2558.
doi: 10.3390/biomedicines11092558.

A Supportive Role of Mesenchymal Stem Cells on Insulin-Producing Langerhans Islets with a Specific Emphasis on The Secretome

Ronit Vogt Sionov  1 , Ronit Ahdut-HaCohen  2   3
Affiliations
Review

A Supportive Role of Mesenchymal Stem Cells on Insulin-Producing Langerhans Islets with a Specific Emphasis on The Secretome

Ronit Vogt Sionov et al. Biomedicines. .

Abstract

Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by a gradual destruction of insulin-producing β-cells in the endocrine pancreas due to innate and specific immune responses, leading to impaired glucose homeostasis. T1D patients usually require regular insulin injections after meals to maintain normal serum glucose levels. In severe cases, pancreas or Langerhans islet transplantation can assist in reaching a sufficient β-mass to normalize glucose homeostasis. The latter procedure is limited because of low donor availability, high islet loss, and immune rejection. There is still a need to develop new technologies to improve islet survival and implantation and to keep the islets functional. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent non-hematopoietic progenitor cells with high plasticity that can support human pancreatic islet function both in vitro and in vivo and islet co-transplantation with MSCs is more effective than islet transplantation alone in attenuating diabetes progression. The beneficial effect of MSCs on islet function is due to a combined effect on angiogenesis, suppression of immune responses, and secretion of growth factors essential for islet survival and function. In this review, various aspects of MSCs related to islet function and diabetes are described.

Keywords: Langerhans’ islets; growth factors; insulin; mesenchymal stem cells; β-cells.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A). Heatmap visualization of growth factor and cytokine mRNA expression in human bone marrow-derived MSCs (Lonza, Catalog number PT-2501, Walkersville, MD, USA) and human islets (obtained from PRODO Laboratories Inc., Irvine, CA, USA) using the Human growth factor RT Profiler PCR Array PAHS-041A (Qiagen, MD, USA). M = Mesenchymal stem cells. I = Islets. (B). A clusterogram of growth factor genes expressed in human islets versus human MSCs.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A–C). mRNA expression in human bone marrow-derived MSCs and human islets for the indicated genes as determined using the Human growth factor RT Profiler PCR Array as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 3
Figure 3
An illustration of the beneficial effects of MSCs on pancreatic β-cells. The red arrows show the deleterious effects of inflammation on β-cells, whereas the green arrows show the beneficial effects of MSCs on β-cells, including the prevention of the harmful effects of cytotoxic T cells and inflammatory cytokines.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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