Maturation of fetal rat islet cells in vitro during tissue culture is associated with increased mitochondrial function.

Tissue culture for one or seven days of pancreatic islets isolated from 21-day old fetal rats was found to be associated with a marked increase in the oxidation of L-(U-14C) glutamine by intact islets and in the activity of both alanine-glutamate and aspartate-glutamate transaminases as well as glutamate dehydrogenase in islet homogenates. This coincided with an increase in the relative amount of mitochondrial DNA. The activities of glucose-phosphorylating enzymes (hexokinase and glucokinase), glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and lactate dehydrogenase were less markedly increased during the culture period than those of enzymes involved in amino acid catabolism and located, in part at least, in mitochondria. The combined data suggest that the functional maturation of fetal islets during the culture period is associated with and may be attributable to a preferential maturation of their mitochondria.