Avezza, Federica

Bianchi, Roberto

Canta, Annalisa

Carozzi, Valentina

Figliuzzi, Marina

Lauria, Giuseppe

Marmiroli, Paola

Meregalli, Cristina

Miloso, Mariarosaria

Remuzzi, Andrea

Scuteri, Arianna

Firenze University Press: E-Journals

IJAE Vol. 115, n. 1/2 (Supplement), 2010
106
Transplanted pancreatic islets survive and reverse type 
I diabetic neuropathy
Paola Marmiroli1, Roberto Bianchi2, Marina Figliuzzi3, Arianna Scuteri1, Valentina Carozzi1, Annalisa 
Canta1, Cristina Meregalli1, Federica Avezza1, Mariarosaria Miloso1, Giuseppe Lauria2, Andrea Remuzzi4
1 Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Technologies, University of Milan “Bicocca”, Monza, Italy
2 “Carlo Besta” Foundation, Milan, Italy
3 “Mario Negri” Institute for Pharmacological Research, Bergamo, Italy 
4  Faculty of Enginery University of Bergamo, Dalmine, Italy
Type 1 diabetes is a chronic disease often leading to systemic complications, such 
as peripheral neuropathy, nephropathy and cardiovascular complications. Whole pan-
creas as well as pancreatic islets transplantation has been proposed for the cure of type 1 
diabetes, allowing a more efficient and physiological metabolic control. We investigated 
the effects of microencapsulated and immunoisolated islet transplantation in a model of 
streptozotocin-induced diabetes in 3 groups of Lewis rats: healthy controls, untreated 
diabetic rats and diabetic rats transplanted with microencapsulated islets into the perito-
neal cavity two months after diabetes induction. Our results demonstrated that follow-
ing transplantation hyperglycemic rats became normoglycemic in few days and this was 
accompanied by a rapid raise in body weight. Meanwhile, thermal (hot plate test) and 
mechanical sensitivity (Randal-Selitto paw withdrawal test measured with an analgesy-
meter) were increased and decreased by 180 and 40-60%, respectively. In addition, the 
density of footpad intraepidermal nerve fibers was significantly reduced by 20% in dia-
betic group and islet transplantation restored normal skin innervation. Nerve conduc-
tion velocity in the tail nerve and the Na+, K+-ATPase activity in the sciatic nerve, both 
reduced by about 25% in diabetic rats, were also normalized by islet transplantation. 
In conclusion, our data obtained in a model of type 1 diabetes, showed that trans-
plant of microencapsulated pancreatic islets, besides controlling glycemia, arrested neu-
ropathy worsening and was able to restore all the diabetic-induced alterations within 
the 2-month follow-up period after transplantation. 
On the basis of these encouraging results, a new experiment with 4-month long 
diabetes followed-up for 4 months after allogenic transplantation has been performed 
and the preliminary analysis confirmed the effectiveness of the procedure also in these 
long-term diabetic animals. In fact, effective treatment of the peripheral nervous system 
damage was demonstrated at the behavioral and neurophysiological levels and the vi-
ability of the transplanted cells could be demonstrated until the end of the study at the 
functional and morphological levels.
We believe that these data can offer a solid basis for the future implementation of 
more sophisticated models of diabetes treatment based on cellular transplantation.


Transplanted pancreatic islets survive and reverse type I diabetic neuropathy

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Transplanted pancreatic islets survive and reverse type I diabetic neuropathy

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