Formation of Re-Aggregated Neonatal Porcine Islet Clusters Improves In Vitro Function and Transplantation Outcome

Neonatal porcine islet-like cell clusters (NPICCs) are a promising source for islet cell transplantation. Excellent islet quality is important to achieve a cure for type 1 diabetes. We investigated formation of cell clusters from dispersed NPICCs on microwell cell culture plates, evaluated the composition of re-aggregated porcine islets (REPIs) and compared in vivo function by transplantation into diabetic NOD-SCID IL2rγ-/- (NSG) mice with native NPICCs. Dissociation of NPICCs into single cells and re-aggregation resulted in the formation of uniform REPI clusters. A higher prevalence of normoglycemia was observed in diabetic NSG mice after transplantation with a limited number (n = 1500) of REPIs (85.7%) versus NPICCs (n = 1500) (33.3%) (p < 0.05). Transplanted REPIs and NPICCs displayed a similar architecture of endocrine and endothelial cells. Intraperitoneal glucose tolerance tests revealed an improved beta cell function after transplantation of 1500 REPIs (AUC glucose 0-120 min 6260 ± 305.3) as compared to transplantation of 3000 native NPICCs (AUC glucose 0-120 min 8073 ± 536.2) (p < 0.01). Re-aggregation of single cells from dissociated NPICCs generates cell clusters with excellent functionality and improved in vivo function as compared to native NPICCs.

Loss of gene function through rapid mitotic cycles in the Drosophila embryo

The early developmental period in Drosophila is characterized by rapid mitotic divisions, when the body pattern becomes organized by a cascade of segmentation gene activity. During this process localized expression of the gap gene knirps (kni) is required to establish abdomen segmentation. The knirps-related gene (knrl) encodes a kni-homologous nuclear hormone receptor-like protein and shares the spatial patterns of kni expression. The two genes differ with respect to the size of their transcription units; kni contains 1 kilobase and knrl 19 kilobases of intron sequences. The consequence of this difference in intron size is that knrl cannot substitute for kni segmentation function, although it gains this ability when expressed from an intronless transgene. Here we show that the length of mitotic cycles provides a physiological barrier to transcript size, and is therefore a significant factor in controlling developmental gene activity during short 'phenocritical' periods. The required coordination of cycle length and gene size provides severe constraints towards the evolution of rapid development.