Rapid isolation of functionally intact pancreatic islets from mice and rats by percollTM gradient centrifucation.

A discontinuous gradient of Percoll was used to effectively separate islets of Langerhans from collagenase digested pancreas from mice and rats. Percoll isolated islets and islets isolated by direct hand-picking from the pancreatic digest were maintained in tissue culture. Percoll isolation of islets did not affect glucose-stimulated insulin release from islets cultured for one week nor the ability of islets from newborn rats to incorporate 3H-thymidine into DNA. Centrifugation in Percoll is an efficient method to isolate functionally intact pancreatic islets.