title: Novel in vivo murine model to study islet potency: engraftment and function.
abstract: Standard islet potency testing uses transplantation of islets under the kidney capsule in diabetic severe combined immunodeficient (d-SCID) mice. Even though it is possible to achieve normoglycemia in the majority of recipients by this method, the surgical procedure, by itself, is technically difficult and associated with an appreciable mortality of animals. In addition, the spatially limited renal subcapsular site restricts the mass of islet tissue that can be transplanted. Matrigel basement membrane matrix (MATRIGEL), extracted from a mouse sarcoma, is rich in angiogenic growth factors and has been shown to support the growth of mammalian cells using murine models. In this report we demonstrate that subcutaneous islet transplantation with MATRIGEL can effectively achieve normoglycemia and that this is a simple and reproducible model for in vivo islet potency testing in d-SCID mice that overcomes many drawbacks of the conventional method of kidney subcapsular islet transplantation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA.
authors.forename: Ankit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bharat
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Benshoff
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Olack
authors.forename: Sabarinathan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ramachandran
authors.forename: Niraj M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Desai
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mohanakumar
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D003094:Collagen; D004338:Drug Combinations; D007515:Islets of Langerhans / Q000166:cytology*; D016381:Islets of Langerhans Transplantation / Q000276:immunology* / Q000379:methods / Q000502:physiology; D007797:Laminin; D051379:Mice; D016513:Mice, SCID; D023421:Models, Animal; D011509:Proteoglycans; D012016:Reference Values
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose; D004338:Drug Combinations; D007797:Laminin; D011509:Proteoglycans; C059485:matrigel; D003094:Collagen