Intestinal Stem Cell: New Approach To Treatment

The gut is known to play an important role in the regulation of the body's metabolism and its dysfunction is associated with a variety of diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, colitis and colorectal cancer that affect millions of people worldwide.

A promising regenerative approach for diabetes therapy is by targeting endocrine dysfunction at an early stage by stimulating the formation of specific enteroendocrine cells from intestinal stem cells. However, for this a detailed understanding of the intestinal stem cell lineage hierarchy and the signals regulating the recruitment of the different intestinal cell types are necessary.

Brain Stem Cells Divide Over Months, Says Study
The stem cells in the hippocampus (brain region) of mice were found to be active over a period of several months, stated researchers.

‘Intestinal cells are regenerated and renewed every 3 to 4 days and failure of the process leads to chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes, colitis, colorectal cancer, and inflammation. Specific therapies that target intestinal stem cells can help regenerate specific cells that are lost during disease progression or to identify and eradicate intestinal cancer stem cells.’
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Heiko Lickert is the director of the Institute of Diabetes and Regeneration Research at Helmholtz Zentrum München, professor of beta cell biology at Technical University of Munich (TUM) and member of the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD). The first author of the study is Anika Böttcher. The study is published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

Importance Of Gut Health

The gut is important for the regulation of energy and glucose homeostasis. The specialized cells are constantly generated and renewed every 3-4 days from intestinal stem cells that carry out intestinal functions. An example of this is the enteroendocrine cells that produce over 20 different types of hormones that signal to the brain and pancreas to regulate for instance appetite, food intake, gastric emptying, and insulin secretion from pancreatic beta cells.

About Stem Cells
Encyclopedia section of medindia gives general info about Stem Cells

The Paneth cells produce defensins and protect against invading pathogens. Intestinal dysfunction is associated with a variety of diseases, such as chronic inflammation, colorectal cancer and diabetes. This affects millions of people worldwide.

Intestinal Stem Cells

Quiz on Stem Cells
Scientists believe (and are working hard) to use stem cells in the future to treat a wide range of diseases and injuries. But what exactly is a stem cell? How can it be used in curing disorders? See if you get your answers from this quiz.

A specific intestinal stem cell niche pathway (called Wnt/planar cell polarity pathway) regulates intestinal stem cell self-renewal and lineage decisions. The intestinal stem cells can indefinitely renew and maintain the gut function and tissue barrier. Each day, 6 meters of epithelium and more than 100 million of cells are generated in humans.

The risk of failure is high in this self-renewal or lineage specification process resulting in a chronic disease.

Scientists Successfully Reverse Loss of Vision In Mice
Scientists were successfully able to the reverse loss of vision due to age, glaucoma and injury to the optic nerve using three Yamanaka genes Oct4, Sox2 and Klf4 in mice.

60,000 intestinal cells were profiled and the findings are applicable and important for cancer, inflammation and colitis as well as obesity and diabetes.

Therapeutic Approach

This basic knowledge can help to map the intestinal stem cell lineage allocation and differentiation during chronic disease. This will help to develop specific therapies for chronic diseases by targeting lineage progenitors for example to regenerate the formation of specific cells that are lost during disease progression or to identify and eradicate intestinal cancer stem cells.

The researchers will focus their efforts on diabetes.

Source-Medindia