Islet Isolation from Juvenile Porcine Pancreas after 24-h Hypothermic Machine Perfusion Preservation

Abstract

Pancreas procurement for islet isolation and transplantation is limited by concerns for the detrimental effects of postmortem ischemia. Hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) preservation technology has had a major impact in circumventing ischemic injury in clinical kidney transplantation and is applied here to the preservation and procurement of viable islets after hypothermic perfusion preservation of porcine pancreata because pigs are now considered the donor species of choice for xenogeneic islet transplantation. Pancreases were surgically removed from young (<6 months) domestic Yorkshire pigs (25–32 kg), either before or after 30 min of warm ischemia time (WIT), and cannulated for perfusion. Each pancreas was assigned to one of six preservation treatment groups: fresh controls—processed immediately (cold ischemia <1 h) (G1, n = 7); static cold storage—flushed with cold UW-Viaspan and stored in UW-Viaspan at 2–4°C for 24 h with no prior WIT (G2, n = 9); HMP perfused on a LifePort® machine at 4–6°C and low pressure (10 mmHg) for 24 h with either KPS1 solution (G3, n = 7) or Unisol-UHK (G4, n = 7). Additional treatment groups to evaluate the effects of prior warm ischemia examined islet isolation after 30 min WIT in situ without (G5, n = 6) or with subsequent 24-h HMP with KPS1 (G6, n = 7). The pancreas was intraductally distended with Liberase PI enzyme and normothermically digested. The isolated islets were purified by a continuous density-gradient centrifugation. Perfusion-induced glandular edema was G3 = 138 ± 19%, G4 = 160 ± 16%, and G6 = 127 ± 22%. Islet yield (IEQ/g of pancreas) varied between the groups: G1 = 1,425 ± 610, G2 = 1,002 ± 262, G3 = 2,242 ± 449 ( p < 0.05 vs. G2), G4 = 1,901 ± 420 ( p < 0.05 vs. G2), G5 = 1,756 ± 329, and G6 = 1,396 ± 243. Islet stimulation indices were equivalent between the groups and similar to controls (G1). Insulin content (ng/IE) was different between the treatment groups with the highest insulin content in islets harvested from HMP pancreata. Dithizone staining for islets consistently showed more uniform digestion of the perfused organs, with greater separation of the tissue, less entrapped islets, and higher islet yield and purity. The salutary effects of HMP for 24 h were also manifest after 30-min prior warm ischemia. We conclude that 24 h of HMP is well tolerated, leading to moderate edema but no loss of function of the harvested islets. The edema appears to aid in enzymatic digestion, producing a greater yield and purity of islets compared with pancreas subjected to 24 h of static cold storage.