The bone marrow as a potential receptor site for pancreatic islet grafts.
BACKGROUND
Pancreatic islet transplantation in the human liver is being performed with increasing success to treat diabetes. However, the liver as a receptor site has many drawbacks due to immunological and non-immunological factors as well as important technical limitations. Bone marrow offers an easily accessible extrahepatic receptor site. Therefore, we attempted to explore the survival of pancreatic islets transplanted into the bone marrow of rats.


METHODS
Pancreatic islets islografts and allografts were implanted into the bone marrow of rats. No immunosuppression was used. Morphology, presence of insulin, and glucagon and signs of apoptosis and rejection were explored.


RESULTS
Pancreatic islets can be successfully engrafted into the bone marrow of rats, maintaining a normal histological appearance in insulin and glucagon content and no signs of apoptosis or rejection.


CONCLUSIONS
These preliminary findings suggest that the bone marrow is capable of maintaining pancreatic islets in the absence of immunosuppression and, thus, can constitute an immunoprivileged environment for engraftment.
Salazar-Bañuelos
Anastasio
A
Department of Surgery, Division of Transplantation, University of Calgary, Calgary Canada. salazara@ucalgary.ca
Wright
James
J
Sigalet
David
D
Benítez-Bribiesca
Luis
L
D000818:Animals; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000601:surgery*; D002470:Cell Survival; D007515:Islets of Langerhans / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology / Q000601:surgery*; D016381:Islets of Langerhans Transplantation / Q000379:methods*; D051381:Rats; D011917:Rats, Inbred Lew; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley