Preservation of Human Pancreatic Islet in Vivo Function After 6-Month Culture in Serum-Free Media1

Abstract

These data demonstrate that human islets can be cultured in M-SFM for extended periods and still retain in vitro and in vivo function and the ability to cure experimental diabetes. The ability to maintain islets in culture for prolonged periods is an important step toward the development of islet tissue repositories and distribution centers.

Glucose Stimulation of Cytochrome C Reduction and Oxygen Consumption as Assessment of Human Islet Quality

“…The choice of 12 ng/ml to define transplant success using the scatter plot of quantiles was susceptible to error. We considered defining transplant success as C-peptide Ͼ1.5 ng/ml, which was 2 standard deviations above background levels for the C-peptide assay (29,30,36). However, in our study, C-peptide was lower than 1.5 ng/ml in response to the IPGTT in only one case.…”

“…In these cases, even islets that are viable may not survive after transplantation. To minimizes these effects, a non-diabetic mouse model, the NOD/SCID, was used as the transplant recipient (29,30,36). Because we are not using diabetic mice, there is not a natural clinical threshold that would be based on blood glucose levels with which to use as criteria to evaluate the predictive value of the assays.…”

“…The protocol has been described previously (29,30). For each assessment of human islets, batches of 1000 and 2000 IE were transplanted under the left renal capsule of 5 mice for each quantity of islets for a total of 10 mice transplanted.…”

An effective purification method using large bottles for human pancreatic islet isolation

“…15,16 However, the marginal number of islets to cure diabetic mice varies among institutes. [17][18][19] In addition, since our group has been aiming for maximizing the islet recovery, the islet purity was relatively low. This relative low purity might hinder the cure rate in our model.…”

Standardized Transportation of Human Islets: An Islet Cell Resource Center Study of more than 2,000 Shipments

“…Such reports suggest a need to account for thermal effects on cell biology experiments, including any undesirable temperature changes during transportation of human islets. Unlike tumor-derived or artificially immortalized cell lines (16), primary human pancreatic islets have a finite lifespan and cannot be readily stored or cultured for long periods of time, although certain exceptions exist (26,44). …”