A preliminary study on isolation and purification of human pancreatic islets

Objective To establish the method for human pancreatic islet isolation and purification.Methods Ten adult human pancreas were digested by the modified Ricordi procedure and islets were purified by continuous density gradient.The islet yield was counted with international standard known as islet equivalent(IEQ).Results Ten adult human pancreas were isolated and purified,and five of them were counted with islet equivalent(IEQ).The islet yield ranged from 6367 to 108725 IEQs/pancreas,with the average of 47678 IEQs/pancreas,and 2055 IEQ/g in average.Conclusions Human islets isolation with modified Ricordi procedure can harvest a large amount of islets,but the technique should be more skillfully operated.