An immunofluorescence microscopy picture reveals a cluster of insulin-producing beta cells (inexperienced) underneath assault by immune cells (dense cluster of blue dots) in a preclinical mannequin of sort 1 diabetes. Credit score: Mayo Clinic
Scientific breakthroughs in a single illness do not at all times make clear treating different illnesses. However that is been the stunning journey of 1 Mayo Clinic analysis group. After figuring out a sugar molecule that most cancers cells use on their surfaces to cover from the immune system, the researchers have discovered the identical molecule could ultimately assist in the remedy of sort 1 diabetes, as soon as generally known as juvenile diabetes.
Sort 1 diabetes is a power autoimmune situation by which the immune system errantly assaults pancreatic beta cells that produce insulin. The illness is attributable to genetic and different elements and impacts an estimated 1.3 million individuals within the U.S.
Of their research, the Mayo Clinic researchers took a most cancers mechanism and turned it on its head. Most cancers cells use a wide range of strategies to evade immune response, together with coating themselves in a sugar molecule generally known as sialic acid. The researchers present in a preclinical mannequin of sort 1 diabetes that it is doable to decorate up beta cells with the identical sugar molecule, enabling the immune system to tolerate the cells.
“Our findings show that it’s possible to engineer beta cells that do not prompt an immune response,” says immunology researcher Virginia Shapiro, Ph.D., principal investigator of the research, revealed within the Journal of Scientific Investigation.
Just a few years in the past, Dr. Shapiro’s group demonstrated that an enzyme, generally known as ST8Sia6, that will increase sialic acid on the floor of tumor cells helps tumor cells seem as if they aren’t international entities to be focused by the immune system.
“The expression of this enzyme basically ‘sugar coats’ cancer cells and can help protect an abnormal cell from a normal immune response. We wondered if the same enzyme might also protect a normal cell from an abnormal immune response,” Dr. Shapiro says. The group first established proof of idea in an artificially-induced mannequin of diabetes.
Within the present research, the group checked out preclinical fashions which might be recognized for the spontaneous improvement of autoimmune (sort 1) diabetes, most carefully approximating the method that happens in sufferers. Researchers engineered beta cells within the fashions to supply the ST8Sia6 enzyme.
Within the preclinical fashions, the group discovered that the engineered cells have been 90% efficient in stopping the event of sort 1 diabetes. The beta cells which might be sometimes destroyed by the immune system in sort 1 diabetes have been preserved.
Importantly, the researchers additionally discovered the immune response to the engineered cells seems to be extremely particular, says M.D.-Ph.D. pupil Justin Choe, first creator of the publication. Choe carried out the research within the Ph.D. part of his twin diploma at Mayo Clinic Graduate Faculty of Biomedical Sciences and Mayo Clinic Alix Faculty of Medication.
“Though the beta cells were spared, the immune system remained intact,” Choe says. The researchers have been in a position to see lively B- and T-cells and proof of an autoimmune response in opposition to one other illness course of. “We found that the enzyme specifically generated tolerance against autoimmune rejection of the beta cell, providing local and quite specific protection against type 1 diabetes.”
No remedy presently exists for sort 1 diabetes, and remedy entails utilizing artificial insulin to manage blood sugar, or, for some individuals, present process a transplant of pancreatic islet cells, which embody the much-needed beta cells. As a result of transplantation entails immunosuppression of the whole immune system, Dr. Shapiro goals to discover utilizing the engineered beta cells in transplantable islet cells with the purpose of finally enhancing remedy for sufferers.
“A goal would be to provide transplantable cells without the need for immunosuppression,” says Dr. Shapiro. “Though we’re still in the early stages, this study may be one step toward improving care.”
Extra data:
ST8Sia6 overexpression protects pancreatic β cells from spontaneous autoimmune diabetes in nonobese diabetic mice, Journal of Scientific Investigation (2025). DOI: 10.1172/JCI181207 , www.jci.org/articles/view/181207
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Sugar layer on beta cells prevents immune system from inflicting sort 1 diabetes (2025, August 2)
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