Posttransplant oxygen inhalation improves the outcome of subcutaneous islet transplantation: A promising clinical alternative to the conventional intrahepatic site.

Subcutaneous tissue is a promising site for islet transplantation, due to its large area and accessibility, which allows minimally invasive procedures for transplantation, graft monitoring, and removal of malignancies as needed. However, relative to the conventional intrahepatic transplantation site, the subcutaneous site requires a large number of islets to achieve engraftment success and diabetes reversal, due to hypoxia and low vascularity. We report that the efficiency of subcutaneous islet transplantation in a Lewis rat model is significantly improved by treating recipients with inhaled 50% oxygen, in conjunction with prevascularization of the graft bed by agarose-basic fibroblast growth factor. Administration of 50% oxygen increased oxygen tension in the subcutaneous site to 140 mm Hg, compared to 45 mm Hg under ambient air. In vitro, islets cultured under 140 mm Hg oxygen showed reduced central necrosis and increased insulin release, compared to those maintained in 45 mm Hg oxygen. Six hundred syngeneic islets subcutaneously transplanted into the prevascularized graft bed reversed diabetes when combined with postoperative 50% oxygen inhalation for 3 days, a number comparable to that required for intrahepatic transplantation; in the absence of oxygen treatment, diabetes was not reversed. Thus, we show oxygen inhalation to be a simple and promising approach to successfully establishing subcutaneous islet transplantation.