Exploring Preservation Modalities in a Split Human Pancreas Model to Investigate the Effect on the Islet Isolation...

Area of Science:

• Transplantation immunology
• Organ preservation science
• Islet cell biology

Background:

• Dynamic hypothermic preservation is crucial for islet transplantation success.
• Current methods for pancreas preservation present challenges.
• This study evaluates static cold storage, hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP), and oxygenated HMP.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the efficacy of three pancreas preservation techniques: static cold storage, HMP, and oxygenated HMP.
• To assess the impact of these preservation methods on isolated islet quality and function.
• To analyze outcomes in a human pancreas split model using organs from both brain death and circulatory death donors.

Main Methods:

• A human pancreas split model was utilized with discarded organs from donation after brain death and donation after circulatory death (DCD) donors.
• Pancreas heads underwent static cold storage (control), while tails were preserved using static cold storage, HMP, or oxygenated HMP.
• Data collected included donor characteristics, pancreas histology, islet isolation yield, and functional islet assays.

Main Results:

• Insulin secretory function was comparable across all preservation groups.
• Islet yield (IEQ/g) was generally higher in study groups (tails) than controls (heads), though not always statistically significant.
• Islets from DCD organs showed greater purity in the HMP group (P ≤ 0.01).
• No significant differences were found in pancreas histology, oxidative stress, or apoptosis markers.

Conclusions:

• This is the first comparative study using a split pancreas model to evaluate different preservation methods for islet isolation.
• No significant differences in islet functionality, histology, or isolation efficacy were observed among the tested methods.
• Further research is required to validate these findings for clinical islet transplantation applications.