However, the team found for the first time that a proportion of the cells are no longer beta cells that are making insulin. They had actually started to make a different hormone called somatostatin -- characteristic of a delta cell

Don’t know if this was seen here but I always wondered why they keep regenerating beta cells as a therapy when they know that when they are implanted the body gets rid of them. And that always led me to believe that the delta cells. The regulatory part of what the cells produce. Glucagon insulin. Etc. had something to do w the beta cells disappearing… that or the culture medium. That which the cells sit in is off for one reason or another. Scientists. Can you read this and come t. Interesting. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190517081638.htm

Anyone?

Sorry, was on a business trip, I will read the paper later today (if you follow your link, there is a link to the actual paper).

If anyone else has time, here is the link to the paper in question -

Ur awesome ty

So you will need to forgive me, this paper is definitely not in my wheelhouse and perhaps some of our members with degrees or backgrounds more in the cellular biology area would be able to answer more definitively. My read is that they are searching for the specific cellular function and gene expression that could be moderated with a therapy, and reduce the effect of diabetes on diabetics (Type 2 more likely to benefit is my guess) by reducing the cellular stress. This paper reads to me like a mid-investigation research paper from a good group.

My Definitions:
early research as just trying to find research direction for further study
mid-investigation have an idea but need to fully investigate
end-investigation when you are closing in on a solution to the problem.

@Katers87, @TiaG, @Michel @glitzabetes Any thoughts?

Science Daily’s article says this:

“The team examined what happens to human beta cells when exposed to an environment that replicated type 2 diabetes.”

As Chris said, the actual research article is incredibly technical and would take some time to decipher if their findings really have any value (not sure I’d even be able to with lots of time).

From what I can tell, they used human cells and created an environment close to what that cell would experience in someone with type 2. It doesn’t seem like the research is really relevant to people with type 1, but I can’t be entirely sure.

Discovering how to reverse the beta cell loss would certainly be helpful for people who have had type 2 for a long time. Hopefully such research would also lead to more research on the direct causes of type 2.

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Thank u!

There are not too many papers that I find are too technical for me to understand completely, but this was one of them.

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I might be able to answer your questions, but I don’t fully understand what you want to know about this paper.

It is technical and confusing at times. What unit of area measurement does μM stand for? Is it just me or is this a mistake?
“The total SST-positive area in in situ islets from T1D or T2D donors compared to control islets was 17069.9 μM (3%) v/s 6166.24 μM (1%) for T2D ( P = 2.47 × 10−9)”

I agree it is probably not that relevant for T1D patients. Though T1s similarly to T2s appear to have more delta cells, it is highly unlikely that reversing the transition from beta to delta cells will benefit T1s, due to the autoimmune aspect of T1D. Also the authors themselves are quite cautious about the results. They note that there are several explanations (not all equally likely) for the emergence of an SST-positive (delta) population of cells. In addition: “Without lineage tracing experiments, which require expansion in non-human lines and are not trivial when using human model systems, it is not possible to infer that these changes we observed are directly due to beta to delta transdifferentiation.”
I must admit that my experience with experimental cell biology is limited, but their evidence for the reversibility of the cell identity and gene expression changes does not fully convince me. Just 24h of cell culturing in a hyperglycemic (or other stress factors) environment may not be a very accurate reflection of the long term exposure to hyperglycemia beta cells in a pancreas experience in a patient. I could imagine that at some point the changes become irreversible.

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Obviously micro Million.

That makes sense :laughing:

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While you might be right, it looks surprisingly like micro Molar which is a commonly used chemistry measurement for concentration, rather than area.

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That is indeed the first thing that comes to mind, but I can’t think of a unit for area with the same abbreviation.

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I will defer to you.

But I liked mine !!!

:rofl:

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I haven’t read the article, and probably won’t because it sounds like I wouldn’t understand most of it—- but tend to think the vast majority of research toward diabetes in general will ultimately apply to both…