Culture of isolated pancreatic islets: its applications for transplantation purposes

The aim of this study was to assess the curative effects of long-term stored islets, when transplanted into diabetic recipients. For this purpose mouse pancreatic islets, either freshly isolated or cultured for 10 days, were allografted intraperitoneally into noninbred mice or into nude mice, all made diabetic by means of a streptozotocin injection. When implanted into nude mice, which lack a cell-mediated immune response, cultured islets were equally effective as were freshly isolated islets, in reducing the hyperglycemia. When fresh or cultured islets were allografted into diabetic NMRI mice there was only a short and transient reduction of the blood sugar, suggesting that no reduction of the antigenicity of the islets had occurred after 10 days of culture. The culture system, however, may serve as a purification step, after which only functionally competent islets remain.