Induction of Protective Genes Leads to Islet Survival and Function.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Transplantation Volume 2011, Article ID 141898, 10 pages doi:10.1155/2011/141898 Review Article Induction of Protective Genes Leads to Islet Survival and Function Hongjun Wang,1 Christiane Ferran,2 Chiara Attanasio,3 Fulvio Calise,3 and Leo E. Otterbein2 1 Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA 2 Department of Surgery, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA 3 Center of Biotechnologies, Cardarelli Hospital, 80131 Napoli, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Hongjun Wang, wanho@ Received 10 June 2011; Accepted 1 September 2011 Academic Editor: Antonello Pileggi Copyright © 2011 Hongjun Wang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Islet transplantation is the most valid approach to the treatment of type 1 diabetes. However, the function of transplanted islets is often compromised since a large number of β cells undergo apoptosis induced by stress and the immune rejection response elicited by the recipient after transplantation. Conventional treatment for islet transplantation is to administer immunosuppressive drugs to the recipient to suppress the immune rejection response mounted against transplanted islets. Induction of protective genes in the recipient (e.g., heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), A20/tumor necrosis factor alpha inducible protein3 (tnfaip3), biliverdin reductase (BVR), Bcl2, and others) or administration of one or more of the products of HO-1 to the donor, the islets themselves, and/or the recipient offers an