Therapeutic ultrasound-induced insulin release in vivo

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 145; no. 3; p. 1894
• Main Authors: Singh, Tania, Suarez Castellanos, Ivan, Chatterjee Bhowmick, Diti, Cohen, Joshua, Jeremic, Aleksandar, Zderic, Vesna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-03-2019
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.5101865

We have previously shown that therapeutic ultrasound is capable of stimulating insulin release from pancreatic beta cells, non-invasively, safely and effectively. The aim of this work is to conduct preliminary animal studies to evaluate the feasibility of controlled insulin release in vivo using therapeutic ultrasound. Wild type hIAPP + / + white FVB mice were randomly assigned to either the ultrasound treatment group or the sham group. Mice in the ultrasound treatment group received one five-minute treatment of continuous 1 MHz ultrasound at 1 W/cm2 . Blood samples were collected via tail nick immediately prior to ultrasound application and immediately after ultrasound application. The pancreas was excised for histological analysis using H&E staining. No gross damage—including any burns on the skin—in the treatment area were observed and there was no evidence of skin burning or internal damage of the abdominal organs, especially the pancreas, found during necropsy. As measured by ELISA, the experimental group treated with ultrasound exhibited an increase of 0.43 ng/ml in blood insulin concentration compared to a 0.60 ng/ml decrease in the control group after 5 min (p < 0.01). Our preliminary results show promise in the translational potential of therapeutic ultrasound in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. We expect that our approach, with careful selection of ultrasound parameters, may provide a safe, controlled and targeted stimulation of insulin release from the pancreatic beta cells.