Posted by Ellen on February 22, 1999 at 06:46:09:
In Reply to: Re: Genetic Engineering vs Xenotransplantation posted by Al Gordon on February 21, 1999 at 21:39:35:
Anyone have password access to Diabetologia?
Abstract Volume 41 Issue 12 (1998) pp 1401-1409
review: Prospects for gene therapy of insulin-dependent diabetes
mellitus
S. Efrat
Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Albert Einstein College of
Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA and
Department of Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Sackler
School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel
Aviv, Israel
Summary The application of gene therapy to Type I
(insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus awaits improvements in
gene transfer technologies and the development of better tools for
accurate diagnosis of pre-diabetic people.
Identification of the most promising candidate genes for gene
transfer requires further elucidation of the molecular
events involved in beta-cell autoimmune destruction, islet
ontogeny and differentiation, and beta-cell function. This
review outlines a number of possible targets for gene therapy in
Type I diabetes, which could help prevent the
autoimmune damage to islets, induce islet regeneration, and
restore insulin production through engineering of self
non-beta cells or beta-cell transplantation. It also evaluates
their potential merits and drawbacks. [Diabetologia
(1998) 41: 1401-1409]
Keywords Beta-cell lines · conditional transformation · gene
transfer · glucose-regulated promoters ·
immunomodulation · insulin biosynthesis · insulin secretion ·
islet regeneration · proinsulin processing ·
transplantation
Article in PDF format (89 KB)