A strategy for the engineering of insulin producing cells with a broad spectrum of defense properties

Konstantin Bloch*, Olga Bloch, Igor Tarasenko, Daniel Lazard, Micha Rapoport, Pnina Vardi

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells are known to be extremely susceptible to the oxidative stress and hypoxia generated following islet transplantation in diabetic patients. We hereby present a novel in vivo selection strategy based on the isolation of insulin-producing cells with enhanced protection after repeated rounds of encapsulation and xenotransplantation. Rat insulinoma INS-1 cells were encapsulated in alginate macrobeads and transplanted in the peritoneal cavity of mice. After 2 days the beads were retrieved and cells were recovered from alginate and propagated in vitro until submitted to a second round of encapsulation and transplantation. Three days later, the surviving cells, named INS-1m2, were isolated from the alginate beads and their protection and functional activity examined. Compared to parental INS-1 cells, the selected INS-1m2 cells were more resistant to hydrogen peroxide, nitric oxide, alloxan and hypoxia. This enhanced protection of the selected cells correlated with the increased level of catalase and poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase expression. Although selected cells expressed more insulin than parental cells, no change in their insulin response to glucose was observed. We conclude that the in vivo selection strategy is a powerful tool for the engineering of insulin producing cells with a broad spectrum of defense properties.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1816-1825
Number of pages10
JournalBiomaterials
Volume32
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Alginate encapsulation
  • Cell therapy
  • Diabetes
  • Insulinoma
  • Xenotransplantation

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