Comparison of analytical methods for quantitation of isolated porcine hepatocyte yields.

As cell-based therapies receive approval for clinical evaluation and use, the development of reliable methods to quantify cell number and control the dose of therapy delivered is becoming increasingly important. An example is the determination of the number and volume of primary porcine hepatocytes used in an extracorporeal treatment for patients with liver disease. Conventional cell counting using optical microscopy was compared against two alternate methods to quantify isolated porcine hepatocytes: (1) automated cell counting using a commercially available particle characterization instrument, and (2) quantitation by cell mass. Methods were compared based on accuracy, precision, specificity, linear range, and ruggedness. The automated method delivered substantially improved accuracy, precision, and ruggedness when compared to the conventional optical method. It also provided valuable information about the size distribution of cell preparations, which often contained clumps of cells, and showed that processing steps such as cryopreservation can alter the size characteristics of a cell population. The automated method was also faster, and was well suited to use in a commercial manufacturing process. The mass-based method was simple and inexpensive, but suffered from nonlinearity at low cell concentrations. Automated cell quantitation using a commercially available particle characterization instrument proved to be the preferred method for obtaining accurate and consistent porcine hepatocyte counts in a timely manner.

Improved assessment of isolated islet tissue volume using digital image analysis.

Accurate and consistent measurement of tissue volume is critical to performing many types of islet research; however, conventional visual determination of isolated islet yields through a microscope is heavily operator dependent. An improved method of islet volume determination using digital image analysis (DIA) was developed to remove operator bias and automate the islet counting process. A series of 140 porcine islet isolations were used to evaluate the DIA method in three separate stages. In Stage 1 (n = 29 isolations), the conventional and DIA methods were correlated with two other independent islet quantitation methods: insulin extraction, and DNA extraction. It was found that volumes determined by DIA correlated more closely with insulin content and DNA content than did conventionally determined volumes. In Stages 2 and 3 (n = 54 and 57 isolations, respectively), it was shown that an increase in the number of fields analyzed by DIA did not significantly improve the quality of the correlations. Inclusion of very small tissue (<50 microm in diameter), which is ignored in the conventional protocol affected yields by less than 10% and did not significantly improve the correlation with insulin or DNA content. Quantitation of isolated islet tissue volume using DIA has been shown to be rapid, consistent, and objective. In the laboratory, use of this method as the standard for islet volume measurement will allow more meaningful comparison of experimental results between centers. In the clinic, its use will allow more accurate dosing of transplanted tissue.

The isolation and function of porcine islets from market weight pigs.

The efficacy of clinical islet transplantation has been demonstrated with autografts, and although islet allografts have established insulin independence in a small number of IDDM patients, the treatment is confounded by the necessity of immunosuppression. the lack of donor tissue, and recurring islet immunogenicity. These limitations underscore a need to develop therapies to serve the large population of diabetic patients. Porcine islet xenotransplantation, together with a successful immune intervention strategy, may provide the necessary clinical alternative. However, a major obstacle in evaluating this approach has been the difficulty of obtaining adequate volumes of functional islet tissue from pigs. Donors of market weight are preferable to retired breeders due to their abundance, lower animal and husbandry costs. and are more suitable to meet regulatory guidelines for donor tissue for xenotransplantation. We describe a simple isolation procedure that following purification yields a mean of 350,000 IE, corresponding to 179 units of insulin and 1.8 mg of DNA with an islet purity and viability in excess of 85% (n = 317 isolations). In both short- and long-term cell cultures, porcine islets demonstrated glucose-responsive insulin secretion. However, this secretion is density dependent, which may have significant consequences in the development of immunoisolation technologies to support porcine islet xenotransplantation. Following implantation into diabetic nude mice, porcine islets remained functional in excess of 1 year. Implantation of a bioartificial pancreas containing porcine islets into pancreatectomized dogs provided significant clinical benefit with an improved diabetic condition. Finally, secretagogue-induced insulin release was demonstrated in vitro from these devices after removal from immunocompetent recipients. Immunohistochemical staining identified well-granulated islets following long-term implantation in both the rodent and canine models. This study demonstrates the ability to isolate porcine islets in clinically relevant numbers from market animals, which survive and remain functional for prolonged periods of time in an immune-deficient or immunoprotected environment.