Generation of functional human pancreatic beta cells in vitro

The generation of insulin-producing pancreatic cells from stem cells in vitro would provide an unprecedented cell source for drug discovery and cell transplantation therapy in diabetes. However, insulin-producing cells previously generated from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) lack many functional characteristics of bona fide β cells. Here we report a scalable differentiation protocol that can generate hundreds of millions of glucose-responsive β cells from hPSC in vitro. These stem cell derived cells (SC) express markers found in mature β cells, flux Ca2+ in response to glucose, package insulin into secretory granules and secrete quantities of insulin comparable to adult β cells in response to multiple sequential glucose challenges in vitro. Furthermore, these cells secrete human insulin into the serum of mice shortly after transplantation in a glucose-regulated manner, and transplantation of these cells ameliorates hyperglycemia in diabetic mice. Differentiated cells were sorted and processed for RNA isolation using the MARIS protocol published previously (PMID: 24516164.) Human embryonic stem cell (hESC) line HUES8 was differentiated into SC-beta cells. Two biological replicates were analyzed. Those data were normalized together with and compared to existing, previously published data from Hrvatin et al. ( (PMID: 24516164) from human islet -derived insulin+ cells, undifferentiated HUES8 hES cells, and insulin+ cells derived from HUES8 cells according to previously published protocols.