AUTHOR=Montanucci Pia , Pescara Teresa , Greco Alessia , Basta Giuseppe , Calafiore Riccardo 

TITLE=Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC), enveloped in elastin-like recombinamers for cell therapy of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D): preliminary data

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/bioengineering-and-biotechnology/articles/10.3389/fbioe.2023.1046206

DOI=10.3389/fbioe.2023.1046206

ISSN=2296-4185

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Introduction:</bold> Therapeutic application and study of type 1 diabetes disease could benefit from the use of functional β islet-like cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Considerable efforts have been made to develop increasingly effective hiPSC differentiation protocols, although critical issues related to cost, the percentage of differentiated cells that are obtained, and reproducibility remain open. In addition, transplantation of hiPSC would require immunoprotection within encapsulation devices, to make the construct invisible to the host’s immune system and consequently avoid the recipient’s general pharmacologic immunosuppression.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> For this work, a microencapsulation system based on the use of “human elastin-like recombinamers” (ELRs) was tested to envelop hiPSC. Special attention was devoted to <italic>in vitro</italic> and <italic>in vivo</italic> characterization of the hiPSCs upon coating with ERLs.</p><p><bold>Results and Discussion:</bold> We observed that ELRs coating did not interfere with viability and function and other biological properties of differentiated hiPSCs, while <italic>in vivo</italic>, ELRs seemed to afford immunoprotection to the cell grafts in preliminary <italic>in vivo</italic> study. The construct ability to correct hyperglycemia <italic>in vivo</italic> is in actual progress.</p>