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Examining the Effect of Laminar Flow on Ex Vivo Pancreatic Islet Associated Endothelial Cells

Pancreatic islets are heavily vascularized micro-organs containing insulin secreting beta-cells coupled with endothelial cells (EC). These EC slowly deteriorate in static culture, precluding long term study of beta-cell-EC interaction, and likely limiting tissue revascularization post-transplantation. We postulate this EC deterioration is due to an absence of hemodynamics, blood movement. We created a microfluidic device to mimic aspects of hemodynamics, delivering a range of media flow to ex vivo islets. With our resulting desk-top system, we have conducted long term incubations (72 hrs), fixed tissue treatments (maintaining endothelial cell morphology) and real-time live tissue imaging (glucose-stimulated Ca2+-response). Our data show that flow in a microfluidic device maintains EC morphology in ex vivo islets better than non-flowing culture, providing an improved platform to study ex vivo islets and to examine the interaction between beta-cells and EC. Our data also suggest an opportunity to prime islet EC for revascularization using microfluidic flow prior to transplantation.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/25460
Date17 December 2010
CreatorsCrocker, Alana
ContributorsRocheleau, Jonathan
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
Languageen_ca
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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