Chimaeric islets control diabetes in mice

Diabetes can be treated by the transplantation of islet cells in cases where the delivery of insulin is not sufficient. However, this approach depends on the availability of suitable donor tissues. Hiromitsu Nakauchi and colleagues have instead injected mouse pluripotent stem cells into embryos from rats that cannot make a pancreas. The mouse pluripotent stem cells developed into islets, which can be isolated and transplanted into diabetic mice, where they are able to normalize the mouse’s blood glucose level.