Organ culture of human foetal pancreas: conditions which affect basal and stimulated insulin release.

Human foetal pancreas has been maintained in organ culture with net synthesis and release of insulin for up to 60 days. The age of the donor foetus affected the basal insulin release rate. A plateau of secretion was reached with foetuses of greater than or equal to 16 weeks of gestation. Explants cultured within 2 h of expulsion following prostaglandin induced termination secreted 3.0 times more insulin after 20 days of culture than those cultured within 2-4 h and 8.1 times more than those cultured more than 4 h post-termination. A high oxygen environment was toxic to the explants during culture. Fresh tissue responded to a high concentration of glucose (19.3 mM) with a small but significant increase in insulin secretion. The addition of 10 mM theophylline caused a major increase in insulin release. Cultured tissue did not respond to glucose alone but did not show increased insulin release following stimulation with glucose (22 mM) together with theophylline (10 mM) in static incubation. The culture of human foetal pancreatic tissue may be useful in maintaining responsive beta cells and may help to ensure an adequate amount of donor tissue for future transplantation into diabetic patients.