0000000000744814
AUTHOR
Ulrich Zimmermann
Long-term graft function of adult rat and human islets encapsulated in novel alginate-based microcapsules after transplantation in immunocompetent diabetic mice.
We describe the results of the first study to show that adult rat and human islets can be protected against xenogenic rejection in immunocompetent diabetic mice by encapsulating them in a novel alginate-based microcapsule system with no additional permselective membrane. Nonencapsulated islets lost function within 4–8 days after being transplanted into diabetic Balb/c mice, whereas transplanted encapsulated adult rat or human islets resulted in normoglycemia for >7 months. When rat islet grafts were removed 10 and 36 weeks after transplantation, the mice became immediately hyperglycemic, thus demonstrating the efficacy of the encapsulated islets. The explanted capsules showed only a …
Preparation of large unilamellar vesicles
Single (unilamellar) and oligolamellar lipid bilayer vesicles of large diameter have great potential in membrane research. In particular, large unilamellar bilayer vesicles (diam. >50 m) would permit the insertion of microelectrodes for the measurement of the electrical properties of lipid bilayer membranes of different compositions. Furthermore, vesicles large enough to be observed by light microscopy could be fused with cells with the aid of the electric field method [l-4]. Since vesicles (liposomes) can be loaded with macromolecules, this might be an elegant means of transferring proteins or plasmids into cells. Large vesicles with different lipid compositions and only one unit membrane …