During pregnancy, maternal pancreatic islets grow to match dynamic physiological demands, but the mechanisms regulating adaptive islet growth in this setting are poorly understood. Here we show that menin, a protein previously characterized as an endocrine tumor suppressor and transcriptional regulator, controls islet growth in pregnant mice. Pregnancy stimulated proliferation of maternal pancr...

Nineteen-ninety was a significant year for clinical islet transplantation, since after many attempts reports of short terml and prolonged2.6 insulin independence following human islet allotransplantation, indicated that it is possible to replace the endocrine function of the pancreas by an islet transplant in man. The development of improved procedures for islet isolation and purification from ...

1 Short Form Paper 2 3 4 Use of the BacT/ALERT® System for Rapid Detection of Microbial 5 Contamination in a Pilot Study using Pancreatic Islet Cell Products 6 7 Running Title: BacT/ALERT® System for Islet Cell Sterility Testing 8 9 Laura Murray1, Neil McGowan2, John Fleming1 and Laura Bailey2,3* 10 11 1 Donation Testing Department, Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, 25 Shelley Road, ...

Pancreatic islet transplantation is a promising treatment for type 1 diabetes (T1D). Interleukin-35 (IL-35) is a recently discovered cytokine that exhibits potent immunosuppressive functions. However, the role of IL-35 in islet transplant rejection remains to be elucidated. In this study, we isolated islet cells of BALB/c mouse and purified CD4+ T cell subsets of a C57BL/6 mouse. The model for ...

Pancreatic islet cells provide the major source of counteractive endocrine hormones required for maintaining glucose homeostasis; severe health problems result when these cell types are insufficiently active or reduced in number. Therefore, the process of islet endocrine cell lineage allocation is critical to ensure there is a correct balance of islet cell types. There are four endocrine cell t...

Invasive rodents have a detrimental impact on terrestrial ecosystem functioning, this is often exacerbated small islands. Rat eradication campaigns are used to deal with environmental perturbation given their classification as invasive species. Studies assessing the effects of rodent control at scale scarce and thus little known about subsequent functional response vegetation rat control. In wo...

More than 500 patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus have now received islet transplants at over 50 institutions worldwide in the past 5 years. Rates of insulin independence at 1 year with current protocols are impressive. However, inexorable decay of islet function over time indicates that there are many opportunities for improvement. Improved control of glycosylated hemoglobin and reduced ris...

BACKGROUND Pancreas dissociation is a critical initial component of the islet isolation procedure and introduces high variability based on factors including the enzyme type, specificity and potency. Product refinement and alterations to the application strategies have improved isolation outcomes over time; however, islet utilization from donor organs remains low. In this study we evaluate a low...

Gastrin is transiently expressed in fetal islets during a critical period of their development from protodifferentiated islet precursors in fetal pancreatic ducts. To examine the possible role of gastrin as an islet cell growth factor, postnatal islet growth was studied in transgenic mice which overexpress gastrin and TGF alpha in their pancreas. Overexpression of a TGF alpha transgene causes m...

We have previously reported the preparation of vascularized islet-kidneys (IKs) by transplantation of islets under the autologous kidney capsule. Here, we compare the efficacy of transplanting vascularized versus nonvascularized islets into diabetic allogeneic swine recipients. In the vascularized islet transplantation (5,000 islet equivalents [IE]/kg), recipients received minor-mismatched (n =...