High Concentrations of Etanercept Reduce Human Islet Function and Integrity

Most islet transplant groups worldwide routinely use the TNFα inhibitor Etanercept in their peri-transplant protocols. Surprisingly, there have been no published dose-response studies on the effects of Etanercept on human islets. Our study aimed to address this by treating cultured human islets with increasing concentrations of Etanercept.

Isolated human islets were cultured for 3-4 days in normoxic (21% oxygen) or in hypoxic (2% oxygen) atmosphere using Etanercept dissolved in a range of 2.5-40 µg/mL prior to islet characterisation.

In normoxic atmosphere, it was found that 5 µg/mL is the most efficient dose to preserve islet morphological and functional integrity during culture. Increasing the dose to 10 µg/mL or more resulted in detrimental effects with respect to viability and glucose-stimulated insulin release. When human islets were cultured for 3 to 4 days in clinically relevant hypoxia and treated with 5 µg/mL Etanercept, post-culture islet survival (P < 0.001) and in vitro function (P < 0.01) were significantly improved. This correlated with a substantially reduced cytokine production (P < 0.05), improved mitochondrial function (P < 0.01), and reduced production of reactive oxygen species (P < 0.001) in hypoxia-exposed islets.

These findings suggest that the therapeutic window of Etanercept is very narrow and that this should be considered when optimising the dosage and route of Etanercept administration in islet-transplant recipients or when designing novel drug-delivering islet scaffolds.