胚胎干细胞分化为胰岛素分泌细胞的意义及研究进展

Significance and research progress of embryonic stem cells differentiation into islet-producing cells

胚胎干细胞(ESCs)是来源于囊胚的内细胞团和受精卵发育至桑椹胚之前的胚胎细胞,具有自我复制和多向分化潜能,是一种全能干细胞.目前已证实ESCs可被诱导分化为胰岛素分泌细胞,将其应用于糖尿病鼠模型取得了可喜的治疗效果,因此对临床应用具有重要价值.对ESCs的体外分离培养、生物学特性、定向分化为胰岛素分泌细胞及相关研究进展作一综述.

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are omnipotence stem cells with self-replication and the poten-tial of multi-directional differentiation, which is derived from inner cell mass of blastula and the embryonic cells before fertilized ovum developing into morula. Early studies have proven that human ESCs could be induced to form pancreatic β cells which could provide a replenishable supply of tissue, and demonstrated satisfactory thera-peutic efficacy on diabetes mellitus in mice models. This review focuses on the isolation, cultivation and morpho-logical characteristics of ESCs in vitro and their directional differentiation into islet-producing cells, as well as the progress in relevant studies.