Differentiation Potential of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells into Insulin Producing Cells in Pancreatic Islet Microenvironment

Background: The differentiation capacity of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) has great promise for type-1 diabetes for cellular treatment. Therefore, different strategies have been reported so far for derivation of insulin producing cells (IPCs) from ESCs. Providing similar microenvironmental conditions as in vivo, functional differentiation of stem cells into desired cell types could be obtained in vitro. The aim of the present research was to utilize differentiation potential of ESCs to IPCs by co-culture with mouse pancreatic islets (mPIs) for the first time.