Type 1 diabetes results from autoimmune destruction of insulin-producing beta cells. Despite its incidence among children and growing prevalence, daily insulin injections remain the primary form of type 1 diabetes management. Lack of complete glucose control by insulin injections leads to severe complications and mortality among diabetes patients. Beta cell regeneration and replacement offers a promising new treatment option. Current studies in this area are directed towards identifying new methods for cell programming whereby one differentiated cell type can be converted to another.

Cavelti-Weder, C., Zumsteg, A., Li, W., and Zhou, Q. 2017. Reprogramming of pancreatic acinar cells to functional beta cells by in vivo transduction of a polycistronic construct containing Pdx1, Ngn3, MafA in mice. Curr. Protoc. Stem Cell Biol. 40:4A.10.1-4A.10.12.

In the February Supplement of Current Protocols in Stem Cell Biology, Qiao Zhou‘s group at Harvard University, describes a robust and reproducible method for “direct programming” of acinar cells into functional beta cells with a polycistronic viral construct and viral transduction of pancreatic tissue in vivo in mice.

The protocol details: a) the generation of the polycistronic viral vector carrying three beta-cell reprogramming factors — Pdx1 (P), MafA (M), and Ngn3 (N) — collectively called PMN – into the acinar cells of the pancreas, and b) the production and tittering of the viral vector for a purified preparation suitable for in vivo transduction in mice.