%0 Journal Article
%A Lorenzo, Petra I.
%A Cobo-Vuilleumier, Nadia
%A Martín-Vázquez, Eugenia
%A López-Noriega, Livia
%A Gauthier, Benoit R.
%T Harnessing the Endogenous Plasticity of Pancreatic Islets: A Feasible Regenerative Medicine Therapy for Diabetes?
%D 2021
%U http://hdl.handle.net/10668/3670
%X Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease caused by an absolute or relative deficiency in functional pancreatic β-cells that leads to defective control of blood glucose. Current treatments for diabetes, despite their great beneficial effects on clinical symptoms, are not curative treatments, leading to a chronic dependence on insulin throughout life that does not prevent the secondary complications associated with diabetes. The overwhelming increase in DM incidence has led to a search for novel antidiabetic therapies aiming at the regeneration of the lost functional β-cells to allow the re-establishment of the endogenous glucose homeostasis. Here we review several aspects that must be considered for the development of novel and successful regenerative therapies for diabetes: first, the need to maintain the heterogeneity of islet β-cells with several subpopulations of β-cells characterized by different transcriptomic profiles correlating with differences in functionality and in resistance/behavior under stress conditions; second, the existence of an intrinsic islet plasticity that allows stimulus-mediated transcriptome alterations that trigger the transdifferentiation of islet non-β-cells into β-cells; and finally, the possibility of using agents that promote a fully functional/mature β-cell phenotype to reduce and reverse the process of dedifferentiation of β-cells during diabetes.
%K Diabetes
%K Regeneration
%K β-cell heterogeneity
%K Transdifferentiation
%K Redifferentiation
%K Singlecell transcriptomics
%K PAX4
%K LRH-1/NR52A
%K HMG20A
%K Diabetes mellitus
%K Regeneración
%K Transdiferenciación
%K Células secretoras de insulina
%K Homeostasis
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