When Porky Pig stutters at the end of a Looney Tunes episode with his famous goodbye, who would have thought the rotund pig’s words might one day apply to diabetes. Well, with a plan to inject pig cells into diabetics – replacing the need for daily injections a thing of the past, Porky’s that’s all folks sounds like music to the ears of type 1 diabetics.

Scientists hope that they may be able to safely treat humans with type 1 diabetes with ‘stealth’ pig cells. Pancreatic pig cells, unlike their human counterparts, offer an unlimited supply of insulin-producing tissue. The University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers are investigating strategies to transplant insulin-producing cell-clusters from pigs into humans to treat the disease. Currently, preclinical trials with pancreatic islets from pigs or mice coated with thin bilayers of biomimetic material are being tested in vivo with mice.

Scientists hope that they may be able to safely treat humans with type 1 diabetes with ‘stealth’ pig cells

One of the primary roles of pancreatic islets is the production of insulin to regulate levels of blood sugar. In Type 1 diabetes, the β-cells responsible for insulin production are destroyed by an autoimmune attack. To protect transplanted donor islets, in the past researchers have had limited success trying to coat islets with thick coatings that adhere to the islets.

The new approach applies a gentler and much thinner coating of just five layers of material about 30 nanometres thick. These layers form a physical barrier that annihilates harmful chemicals and squashes the immune response while allowing nutrients and oxygen an easy passage to the cells. One of the layers, tannic acid, can scavenge destructive free radicals, much like the polyphenols found in green tea.

Professor Eugenia Kharlampieva, co-author of the research, noted: “We did not expect the multi-layers would show such a large, potential benefit.”

Researchers have found that nano-coated mouse islets survived and functioned up to 40 days in diabetic mice whose immune systems were not working. “We showed that they do stay alive, and they function to regulate blood glucose.”  Pig islets — unlike the scarce supply of human islets — offer an unlimited source of insulin-producing tissue.

Yet another reason, besides bacon, to love pigs!