Assessment of some porcine strains as donors of islets of Langerhans.

Mass isolation of viable porcine islets is a difficult task because of their fragility, and because of donor variability with respect to strain, age, sex, feeding, and methods of slaughtering. Not all strains are equally suitable for islet separation. The aim of this study was to evaluate porcine pancreata as an alternative source of islets for clinical transplantation. Pancreata were digested from pig strains available in Poland: 248 market weight slaughterhouse pigs and 42 pigs, belonging to the Polish Large White (WBP, 14 sows and 3 males), Polish White Pendant-Ears (PBZ; 16 sows), Pietrain (8 sows), and Yorkshire (1 sow) races. Prepurification data of recoverable islets/g and islet equivalents/g were considered as representative for the number of recoverable islets. Acceptable results namely, islet and/or islet-equivalent (IE) number of at least 1000/g, were obtained from only 56 of 248 slaughterhouse pigs, namely 2073 +/- 137.4 SE (median 1767/g) islets with values of IE of 2994 +/- 303 SE (median 1874/g). Our data support Krickhahn et al suggesting that only pancreata with an average islet size exceeding 199 microm should be digested and that only from 1 of 3 to 5 porcine pancreata is an adequate amount of islets generated.