Effects of anti-oxidizing vitamins on in vitro cultured porcine neonatal pancreatic islet cells

Oxidative stress may cause severe cellular damage to both allo- and xeno-tr ansplanted islets, additional to islet graft-directed immunity, in diabetic patients. We thus aimed to examine the effects of antioxidants on in vitro culture-maintained, neonatal porcine cell clusters (NPCCs), NPCCs were tre ated with antioxidants (vitamins D-3 and E) by a certain time of their matu ration and differentiation process. Insulin recovery showed that both vitam ins D-3 and E, unlike untreated controls, resulted in preservation of the i slet function for significantly long periods of time. Such effects were als o confirmed during NPCCs in vitro static incubation with high glucose, Furt hermore, morphologic examination of NPCCs demonstrated that at 16 days of c ell culture beta -cell clusters were significantly larger and more intact w hen exposed to the vitamins as compared to controls. According to these pre liminary results, because the employed vitamins, known to retain anti-oxidi zing properties, seemed to clearly improve NPCCs morphology and function, t hey may represent a potentially useful tool for islet culture maintenance i n the pre-transplant time period. (C) 2000, Editrice Kurtis.