The Application of Umbilical Cord Blood Cells in the Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

In recent years, human umbilical cord blood (HUCB) has emerged as an attractive tool for cell-based therapy. Although at present the clinical application of HUCB is limited to the fields of hematology and oncology, a rising number of studies show potential for further application in the treatment of non-hematopoietic diseases. HUCB, with its real abundance, simple collection procedure and no serious ethical dilemmas, represents a valuable alternative to the use of other stem cell sources. The aim of this article is to review the literature on HUCB and to assess its eventual usability in the treatment of diabetes mellitus. This review presents some recent reports concerning pancreatic endocrine stem cells and their identification, HUCB stem cells and their advantages and, finally, the potential for converting HUCB-derived stem cells into insulin-producing beta-cells.

Islet neogenesis from the constitutively nestin expressing human umbilical cord matrix derived mesenchymal stem cells

“…Umbilical cord blood (UCB) is a fairly good source of pluripotent MSCs and HSCs with lineage specificity 2 and hence is rapidly gaining attention for its proposed therapeutic values. 3,4 The UCB derived MSCs also exhibit the potential to differentiate into the insulin producing beta cells [5][6][7][8] and hence can be used as an alternative for pancreatic progenitor cells. However the availability of cord blood will be limited in due course of time, as most of the cord blood would be cryopreserved for banking purposes; hence there is a dire need to look for an alternative source of stem cells.…”

Stem Cell Treatment for Complicated Diabetes

“…About one-third of type 2 diabetic men have lower levels of free testosterone (4). Current therapeutic modalities for type 2 diabetics involve insulin and oral hypoglycemic agents, and human embryonal stem cells clusters in nestin-selection protocol with minor modifications (5,6) showed 30-fold increased production of insulin compared to those increased by monolayer cells.…”

Effect of Transplantation of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Induced into Early Hepatic Cells in Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Mice

“…12,13) In addition, hematopoietic stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells isolated from umbilical cord blood differentiated in vitro into insulin expressing cells. [2][3][4][14][15][16][17][18] In this study, we induced the BM-MSCs into endoderm and hepatic cells and then transplanted these cells into streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic mice.…”