UGA discovery holds promise for treatment of diabetes and other debilitating diseases

Two University of Georgia animal science researchers introduced to the world 13 pigs that may hold the key to new therapies to treat human diseases, including diabetes. Announced this week, the discovery marks the first time pluripotent stem cells, or cells that can turn into any type of cell in the body, have been created from adult livestock.

We now for the first time have a method to make pigs that can be a source of cells and organs for regenerative medicine in a meaningful way said Steven L. Stice, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Reproductive Physiology. A faculty member in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Stice also directs UGA's Regenerative Bioscience Center. The technique called induced pluripotent stem cells had only previously been shown to make live offspring in mice.

"These first-in-the-world, pig-induced pluripotent cells-generated animals can eventually be used to provide and search for better therapies and cures for human disease and regenerative conditions," Stice said.

The discovery is a new tool for researchers who need to determine which sources of cells, adult or earlier stages such as embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells, will work best for each disease.

The induced pluripotent stem cells piglets were born Sept. 3, 2009. The process used avoids the more problematic and controversial cloning process while making it easier to make the genetic changes necessary to develop pigs as a better source of cells and organs for transplantation.

"Although induced pluripotent stem cell technology was first successful in mice, they aren't always a good model to study human disease and they are not a good source of tissue and organs for therapy,"  Stice said. "Pigs are often the best way to go."

Stice credits Franklin West, an assistant research scientist, with perfecting the method.

"I've worked on this for about 20 years," Stice said. "Franklin found the way to make it work."

The pluripotent stem cells incorporated naturally into the developing fetuses and contributed to the development of many cell types of the body, such as lungs, kidney, heart, skin or muscle, producing healthy piglets, West said. And 80 percent of the animals produced using this new method are a product of these stem cells, a very high percentage.

The new process will be valuable for a research project under way in partnership with Emory University to find better therapies for diabetes.

"Islets that produce insulin and other hormones related to regulating blood sugar are found in the pancreas," Stice said. "It is well known that porcine islet cells could be a major break through in the treatment of Type I (juvenile) diabetes if they were not rejected by the human immune system. This new method will allow researchers to make the necessary genetic changes to dampen or potentially eliminate the rejection of the new stem cells and then we can make animals from these stem cells."

Another goal, Stice said, is for the study results to lead the way to healthier, more environmentally friendly and disease-resistant livestock, and ones that could help reduce poverty or starvation in developing countries.

Once the new pigs reach sexual maturity and Stice and West determine if the pigs produce viable sperm and egg cells, they can begin naturally mating. The offspring of the current pigs will produce the cells needed to move into the therapy stage and clinical trials.

Details of the discovery will be published in the journal Stem Cells and Development next month.

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K-State Researcher Finds That the 1918 Spanish Flu Virus Can Infect Swine and Resulted in Current Lineage of H1N1 Swine Influenza Viruses

/PRNewswire / -- In 1918 a human influenza virus known as the Spanish flu spread through the central United States while a swine respiratory disease occurred concurrently. A Kansas State University researcher has found that the virus causing the pandemic was able to infect and replicate in pigs, but did not kill them, unlike in other mammalian hosts like monkeys, mice and ferrets where the infection has been lethal.

Juergen A. Richt, Regents Distinguished Professor of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology at K-State's College of Veterinary Medicine, studied the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic with colleagues from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Their research supports the hypothesis that the 1918 pandemic influenza virus and the virus causing the swine flu were the same. Richt said the virus was able to infect and replicate in swine and cause mild respiratory disease. The 1918 virus spread through the pig population, adapted to the swine and resulted in the current lineage of the H1N1 swine influenza viruses. The researchers' study is published in the May 2009 Journal of Virology.

"This study emphasizes that an influenza virus, which is known to induce a lethal infection in ferrets and macaques, is not highly virulent in pigs, indicating a potential resistance of swine to highly virulent influenza viruses," Richt said. "It also suggests that pigs could have played a role in maintaining and spreading the 1918 human pandemic influenza virus."

Swine flu is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza that regularly causes outbreaks of influenza among the animals and can be transmitted to humans. It is a typical zoonotic agent. While swine flu was first recognized as a disease in 1918, there also were reports of the influenza occurring in the Midwest in 1930.

For the study, the researchers used the 1918 pandemic virus and a 1930 H1N1 influenza virus for experimental infections in swine. The 1930 virus was chosen as a virus because it is thought to be a descendent of the 1918 virus, Richt said.

The researchers did not find a significant difference in effects from the 1918 and 1930 viruses in infected pigs. This was surprising, since the 1918 virus killed more than 20 million people and was lethal to ferrets, mice and macaques. Another surprising finding from the study was the rapid antibody response in the animals infected with the 1918 virus, which is not typically reported for the swine influenza virus.

Richt said he plans to conduct a follow-up project that will study what makes a swine flu virus a pandemic flu virus.

The researchers conducted the study in the biosafety-level 4 laboratory and animal cubicle at the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Canada.

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