Gene therapy cures diabetic dogs

Five diabetic beagles no longer needed insulin injections after being given two extra genes, with two of them still alive more than four years later.

Several attempts have been made to treat diabetes with gene therapy but this study is "the first to show a long-term cure for diabetes in a large animal", says F?tima Bosch, who treated the dogs at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.

The two genes work together to sense and regulate how much glucose is circulating in the blood. People with type 1 diabetes lose this ability because the pancreatic cells that make insulin, the body's usual sugar-controller, are killed by their immune system.

Delivered into muscles in the dogs' legs by a harmless virus, the genes appear to compensate for the loss of these cells. One gene makes insulin and the other an enzyme that dictates how much glucose should be absorbed into muscles.

Two genes good

Dogs which received just one of the two genes remained diabetic, suggesting that both are needed for the treatment to work.

Bosch says the findings build on an earlier demonstration of the therapy in mice. She hopes to try it out in humans, pending further tests in dogs.

Other diabetes researchers welcomed the results but cautioned that the diabetes in the dogs that underwent the treatment doesn't exactly replicate what happens in human type 1 diabetes. That's because the dogs' pancreatic cells were artificially destroyed by a chemical, not by their own immune systems.

"This work is an interesting new avenue which may give us a completely new type of treatment," says Matthew Hobbs, head of research at the charity Diabetes UK. "The researchers' plan to test the treatment in a larger number of dogs with naturally occurring [type 1] diabetes is a sensible way to gather stronger evidence that will be needed before this experimental treatment is ready to be tested in humans."

Journal reference: Diabetes, doi.org/kf3

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

Have your say

Only subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in.

Only personal subscribers may leave comments on this article

Subscribe now to comment.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/287ceef3/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cdn231630Egene0Etherapy0Ecures0Ediabetic0Edogs0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

ellen degeneres jcpenney yeardley love nba all star reserves rock center christine christine will ferrell