Potential anti-rejection drug for insulin cell transplantation


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February 28, 2011
http://www.healthcanal.com/medical-breakthroughs/14855-Potential-anti-rejection-drug-for-insulin-cell-transplantation.html
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Excerpt [with inserts, not part of original
article, included in brackets]:

Australian scientists have developed a reagent
with the potential to prevent rejection of trans-
planted insulin-producing cells into people with
Type 1 diabetes [Insulinitis] - one of the most
promising immunology developments in recent
years.

The best hope for restoring insulin production
is for people to receive transplanted clusters of
insulin-producing cells from the pancreas known
as 'Islets of Langerhans'.

Each pancreas has around a million islets, which
maintain the body's blood sugar levels in exqui-
site balance [in persons without any glucose
anomaly]. Islets are obtained from a deceased
donor pancreas - and while transplants have
been successful for limited periods, islets are
fragile, the body rejects donor cells strenuously,
and anti-rejection drugs are highly toxic.

And even when heavy duty immunosuppressive
drugs are given to a patient, that person still has
Type 1 diabetes [Insulinitis] - the autoimmune
disease that destroyed their insulin-producing
cells in the first place [this is true in the over-
whelming majority of persons with Insulinitis,
but a significant number of individuals get
Insulinitis due to other causality, such as pan-
creatitis, a pancreas-impacting wound, pan-
creas surgery].

The new reagent ... has the potential to turn
this situation around.

Given to ... mice [with Insulinitis] for two weeks,
starting the day before islet transplantation, the
reagent allowed mice to accept the donor cells
as their own - with no need for immunosuppres-
sive drugs, and no Type 1 diabetes [Insulinitis].
Permanently.

The reagent is a cloned cell surface receptor that
mops up a harmful molecule known as IL-21, which
appears to cause Type 1 diabetes [Insulinitis]. The
cloned receptors compete with similar receptors
on the body's own killer immune cells, preventing
them from destroying the transplant.

The findings are published in the international
journal Diabetes, now online.

"Our reagent works as well in our model than
drugs that are currently in clinical trials for islet
transplantation," said Dr King.

"Individual tissue types have their own molecular
signature, and our bodies usually reject tissues
they don't recognise. In our experiments we
used a very strong mismatch, and the mice still
accepted the transplants without rejection."

"If this works in people as it has in mice, then
they would only have to take the drug for a brief
time-window after surgery - then the transplant
would be fine for life."

"In this study, we've shown definitively that if
the body's killer T cells don't get IL-21, they
don't reject the islet tissue. "

"The next step would be to trial our IL-21 neu-
tralising agent in people."

Dr Dorota Pawlak, Head of Research Development
at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, said
that the ability to replace insulin producing cells
safely in people with Type 1 diabetes [Insulinitis]
without the need for immune suppression would
be a revolution ... "This finding represents progress
and it is important to acknowledge and honour
advances that take us closer to finding a cure for
Type 1 diabetes [Insulinitis]."

....

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Pro-Humanist FREELOVER
C.ure I.nsulinitis A.ssociation
http://prohuman.net/cureinsulinitisassociation.htm
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