High density culture of pancreatic islet-like 3D tissue organized in oxygen-permeable porous scaffolds with external oxygen supply

Transplantation of macroencapsulated pancreatic islets within semipermeable membranes is a promising approach for the treatment type 1 diabetes. Encapsulation beneficially isolates implants from host immune system. Deleteriously however, it also limits oxygen supply to cells. This creates challenges in loading at amount and density required meet practical demands clinical usage. To overcome this challenge, we investigated feasibility using macroporous scaffolds made an oxygen-permeable polymer, poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) by culturing islet-like three-dimensional tissue rat beta cell line on scaffolds. With external oxygenation, function cells PDMS scaffold were more than three times almost two higher those without respectively. suggests that oxygenation afforded allows high-density islet into devices.