Overcoming the Challenges of Islet Recovery from Young Donor Pancreases: An Update 5 Years Later

Thursday, February 12, 2026 | 11 AM EST

My laboratory described a novel approach to this problem by comparing the effect of different collagenase-protease enzyme mixtures on islet yields from young donors. For these islet isolations, the pancreas was split into head, body and tail, with each portion digested with a different enzyme mixture. The three enzyme mixtures used were the standard enzyme composition (SEC) , an increased collagenase composition (ICC) where protease composition was the same as in the SEC, and an increased protease composition (IPC) where the collagenase was the same as in the SEC. Each mixture was rotated between organ portions to minimize anatomical bias since islet density is different in each portion of the pancreas.

Comparison of the islet isolation results within the same organ showed that islets isolated with the IPC mixture gave a significantly lower percentage of mantled islets and higher islet recovery after purification. The percent undigested tissue for portions digested with IPC had a p value of 0.06 when compared to results obtained from tissue digested with SEC or IEC. The difference in IEQ/g was not significantly different and is due to the higher density of recovered islets in the tail portion of the pancreas, regardless of the enzyme used in the digestion procedure. 

The validity for using IPC enzyme mixtures for young donors was confirmed by performing additional islet isolation using intact pancreas digested with IPC mixtures from VitaCyte, Roche, or Nordmark. 

Join us for part 2 of webinar Overcoming the Challenges of Low Islet Recovery from Young Organ Donors from 5 years ago.

Appakalai N. Balamurugan, PhD
Professor, Pediatric Endocrinology
Director, Islet Biology & Transplantation
Wendy Novak Diabetes Institute
University of Louisville, Norton Healthcare
Louisville, KY, 40202, USA