Small intestinal submucosa improves islet survival and function during in vitro culture

AIM： To evaluate the recovery and function of isolated rat pancreatic islets during in vitro culture with small intestinal submucosa （SIS）. METHODS： Pancreatic islets were isolated from Wistar rats by standard surgical procurement followed by intraductal collagenase distension, mechanical dissociation and Euroficoll purification. Purified islets were cultured in plates coated with multilayer SIS （SIS-treated group） or without multilayer SIS （standard cultured group） for 7 and 14 d in standard islet culture media of RPMI 1640. After isolation and culture, islets from both experimental groups were stained with dithizone and counted. Recovery of islets was determined by the ratio of counts after the culture to the yield of islets immediately following islet isolation. Viability of islets after the culture was assessed by the glucose challenge best with low （2.7 mmol/L） and high glucose （16.7 mmol/L） solution supplemented with 50 mmol/L 3-isobutyl-1- methylxanthine （IBMX） solution. Apoptosis of islet cells after the culture was measured by relative quantification of histone-complexed DNA fragments using ELISA. RESULTS： After 7 or 14 d of in vitro tissue culture, the recovery of islets in SIS-treated group was significantly higher than that cultured in plates without SIS coating. The recovery of islets in SIS-treated group was about twice more than that of in the control group. In SIS treated group, there was no significant difference in the recovery of islets between short- and long-term periods of culture （95.8±1.0% vs 90.8±1.5%, P〉0.05）. When incubated with high glucose （16.7 mmol/L） solution, insulin secretion in SIS-treated group showed a higher increase than that in control group after 14 d of culture （20.7±1.1 mU/L vs 11.8±1.1 mU/L, P〈0.05）. When islets were placed in high glucose solution containing IBMX, stimulated insulin secretion was higher in SlS-treated group than in control group. Calculated stimulation index of SlS-treated group was about 23 times of control group. In addition, the stimulation index of SlS-treated group remained constant regardless of short- and long- term periods of culture （9.5±0.2 vs 10.2±1.2, P〉0.05）. Much less apoptosis of islet cells occurred in SlS-treated group than in control group after the culture. CONCLUSION： Co-culture of isolated rat islets with native sheet-like SIS might build an extracellular matrix for islets and provide possible biotrophic and growth factors that promote the recovery and subsequent function of islets.

Effects of human umbilical cord serum on proliferation and insulin content of human fetal islet-like cell clusters

BACKGROUND: Type 1 diabets is an autoimmune disease caused by the destruction of pancreatic β-cell with an in- creased incidence worldwide in the closing decades of the 20th century. This study was to investigate the effects of human umbilical cord serum (UCS) on the proliferation and function of human fetal islet-like cell clusters (ICCs) in vitro. METHODS: Eight fresh pancreatic glands obtained after in- duction of labor with water bag were mildly exposed to col- lagenase V, and the digested cells were cultured in a RPMI- 1640 medium plus 10% pooled UCS or fetal calf serum (FCS) to permit cells attachment and outgrowth of ICCs. RESULTS: In 8 consecutively explanted glands, develop- ment and proliferation of ICCs were observed. In the pre- sence of FCS, the outgrowth of ICC took place on the top of a flbroblast monocellular layer. UCS affected less growth of fibroblasts and increased the formation of ICCs about four-fold compared with explants from the same glands maintained in FCS. In both UCS and FCS, the insulin con- tent of the medium was variable to a certain extent and progressively declined from day 2 to day 6. Dithizone- stained ICCs in UCS suggested that most cell clusters were islet cells ( β-cells), and the purity of islets was estimated 80%-90%. The ultrastructure of the cultured cells showed a large number of granule-containing cells, most of which were identified as β-cells. CONCLUSION: We conclude that in comparison with ex- plants with FCS, the yield of ICCs and purification of islet cells are markedly increased by UCS and may facilitate the proliferation of pancreatic β-cells intended for islet trans- plantation.