Successful intracerebral allotransplantation of pancreatic endocrine cells in spontaneous diabetic BB rats without immunosuppression.

An approach for pancreatic-islet transplantation in the spontaneous diabetic Bio-Breeding (BB) Wistar rat is described in which purified allogeneic pancreatic endocrine cells (PEC) are inoculated intracerebrally in the diabetic recipients. Without immunosuppression, 12/12 of the recipient animals responded to the transplanted PEC with no further need of insulin administration. Also, 8/12 showed normalization of nonfasting blood glucose (BG), 24-hour urine output, and gradual increase in body weight (BW) for a mean observation period of over 122.1 +/- 13.6 days. They had a glucose disappearance K rate of 1.7 +/- 0.3 (mean +/- SE), following intravenous (IV) glucose load. The grafted PEC remain functional and apparently are not affected by the usual immunorejection and/or original disease process during the whole period of observation. This achievement of long-term allograft function without immunosuppression would provide an opportunity to study the recurrence of diabetes and the effect of islet-cell transplantation in chronic diabetic complication in the spontaneous diabetic BB rat model which closely resembles human type 1 diabetes mellitus.