Refined methods of islet cell purification have led to unprecedented success of islet cell allotransplantation via portal vein infusion in diabetic patients, resulting in marked reduction of exogenous insulin requirements and recently even insulin independence. The authors report the histologic findings of islet cell allografts in the liver of four patients who had undergone combined kidney-isl...

The full potential of cadaveric islet transplantation will only be realized by avoiding both pretransplant insults programming islets for subsequent death and posttransplant triggers for apoptosis and necrosis. The immediate blood mediated inflammatory response causes significant islet loss in the immediate posttransplant period. However, if we focus on this alone we will miss many opportunitie...

Islet transplantation is an attractive treatment of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). Animal models of diabetes mellitus (DM) contribute a lot to the experimental studies of islet transplantation and to evaluations of isolated islet grafts for future clinical applications. Diabetic nonhuman primates (NHPs) represent the suitable models of DMs to better evaluate the effectiveness of islet transpl...

The Collaborative Islet Transplant Registry (CITR) collects data on clinical islet isolations and transplants. This retrospective report analyzed 1017 islet isolation procedures performed for 537 recipients of allogeneic clinical islet transplantation in 1999-2010. This study describes changes in donor and islet isolation variables by era and factors associated with quantity and quality of fina...

Pancreatic islet transplantation has emerged as a therapy for type 1 diabetes and is today performed using both freshly isolated and cultured islets. Islet blood vessels are disrupted during islet isolation; therefore, proper revascularization of the transplanted islets is of great importance for islet graft function and survival. We have studied intraislet endothelial cells after islet isolati...

Many factors influence the outcome of islet transplantation. As islets in the early posttransplant setting are supplied with oxygen by diffusion only and are in a hypoxic state in the portal system, we tested whether small human islets are superior to large islets both in vitro and in vivo. We assessed insulin secretion of large and small islets and quantified cell death during hypoxic conditio...

We provide the first comprehensive analysis of the extracellular matrix (ECM) composition of peri-islet capsules, composed of the peri-islet basement membrane (BM) and subjacent interstitial matrix (IM), in development of type 1 diabetes in NOD mice and in human type 1 diabetes. Our data demonstrate global loss of peri-islet BM and IM components only at sites of leukocyte infiltration into the ...

results coincubation of islets with vitamin d (10 nm) and 11.1 mm glucose increased islet insulin release (37.27 ± 3.75 vs. 24.64 ± 2.83 ng/islet/24 hours; p < 0.05), while vitamin d (1 and 10 nm) decreased insulin release in the presence of 16.7 mm glucose (21.14 ± 3.58 and 18.65 ± 3.84 vs. 37.71 ± 4.63 ng/ islet/24 hours; p < 0.05). islets preincubation with vitamin d (1 and 10 nm) increased ...

OBJECTIVE Study the role of hyperglycemia-induced beta cell loss on grafted islet destruction. DESIGN Male inbred rats were made diabetic by streptozotocin administration and used as islet donors and/or isograft recipients to probe directly the role of hyperglycemia as an important determinant of transplanted islet fate, following exclusion of immune-related causes of islet graft destruction ...

Islet transplantation has great potential for curing type 1 diabetes; however, long-term islet survival using conventional immunosuppression remains elusive. We present a novel strategy for inducing long-lasting islet graft survival in diabetic NOD mice in the absence of posttransplant immunosuppression by initial treatment with antilymphocyte serum (ALS) followed by coadministration of donor p...