ISLET PROCUREMENT AND ANALYSIS CORE

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The Islet Procurement and Analysis Core is a new core of the Vanderbilt DRTC. Islet biology, development, and function are major DRTC research areas with investigators studying a variety of islet-related processes ranging from intracellular signaling, the immunology of type 1 diabetes, islet-enriched transcription factors, to islet transplantation. Central to many experimental paradigms of these DRTC-affiliated investigators is access to rodent, porcine, or human pancreatic islets. The objective of this core is to facilitate the research of DRTC-affiliated investigators by providing high quality, well-characterized pancreatic islets and to assist investigators in studies that use these islets. A mouse islet isolation core at Vanderbilt has been operational under the auspices of the Vanderbilt Mouse Metabolic Phenotyping Center (MMPC), but its design is such that it is not well-suited for handling the volume of islets needed as the number and activity of DRTC investigators within Vanderbilt continue to grow. In addition, a number of Vanderbilt researchers are studying the mechanisms involved in mouse islet development and function, but limited access to human islets slows translation of their observations into the human islet arena. Thus, in this application, we propose to create the Vanderbilt Islet Procurement and Analysis Core, which will be jointly supported by the NIDDK-funded MMPC and the DRTC and will substantially increase the access of DRTC-affiliated investigators to pancreatic islets. The services offered by this core are: 1) isolation of rodent pancreatic islets; 2) purification and handling of human islets (received from NIH/JDRF human islet distribution program); and 3) characterization of islet preparations from all species by assessment of insulin secretion in a cell perifusion system. This core will expand the ability of DRTC-affiliated investigators to perform diabetes-related research and will interact with other DRTC-supported cores. For example, isolated islets may be studied in the Cell Imaging Shared Resource, secreted islet hormones would be assayed in the Hormone Assay Core, or parallel studies assessing in vivo insulin secretion can be performed in the Metabolic Physiology Shared Resource and correlated with in vitro studies in isolated islets. This core will provide essential services that support the research of DRTC-affiliated investigators in the next funding cycle.