title: Towards xenotransplantation of pig islets in the clinic.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Porcine islet xenotransplantation into humans faces two major hurdles - safety issues related to xenosis and xenorejection of the transplants. The former has been overcome mainly by selection of a suitable disease-free source herd.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Four strategies have been employed to date to overcome the rejection, all of which have shown some efficacy in animal models.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Immune suppression, Sertoli cell co-transplantation and microencapsulation have been tried in type 1 diabetic humans with some clinical benefit derived reported from the latter two. Unaware hypoglycemia in particular seems amenable to the microencapsulation approach.
authors.affiliation: Living Cell Technologies Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand. belliott@lctglobal.com
authors.forename: Robert B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Elliott
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000276:immunology / Q000517:prevention & control; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D016381:Islets of Langerhans Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000276:immunology; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D013552:Swine; D013997:Time Factors; D023001:Transplantation Tolerance; D014183:Transplantation, Heterologous; D016896:Treatment Outcome