Improvement of isolated caprine islet survival and functionality in vitro by enhancing of PDX 1 gene expression

Background Dead islets replaced with viable islets are a promising offer to restore normal insulin production to a person with diabetes. The main reason for establishing a new islet source for transplantation is the insufficiency of human donor pancreas while using xenogeneic islets perhaps assists this problem. The expression of PDX 1 is essential for the pancreas expansion. In mature β‐cells, PDX 1 has several critical roles such as glucose sensing, insulin synthesis, and insulin secretion. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the expression of pancreatic duodenal homeobox‐1 ( PDX 1) in treated caprine islets in culture and to assess the protective effects of antioxidant factors on the PDX 1 gene in cultured caprine islets. Materials and methods Purified islets were treated with serum‐free, serum, IBMX , tocopherol, or IBMX and tocopherol media. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting were carried out to compare the expression levels of PDX 1 in treated purified islets cultured with different media. Results Islets treated with IBMX /tocopherol exhibited the highest fold change in the relative expression of PDX 1 on day 5 post‐treatment (relative expression: 6.80±2.08), whereas serum‐treated islets showed the lowest fold changes in PDX 1 expression on day 5 post‐treatment (0.67±0.36), as compared with the expression on day 1 post‐treatment. Insulin production and viability tests of purified islets showed superiority of islet at supplemented serum‐free media with IBMX /tocopherol compared to other cultures (53.875%±1.59%). Conclusions Our results indicated that supplemented serum‐free medium with tocopherol and IBMX enhances viability and PDX 1 gene expression compared to serum‐added and serum‐free media.