XenotransplantationSelection of donor pigs for pancreatic islet transplantation may depend on the expression level of connective tissue proteins in the islet capsule
Section snippets
Tissues
Porcine pancreata were obtained from local slaughterhouses. Organs were harvested from adult, 7 to 12 months old pigs (90 to 110 kg) of the following breeds: German Landrace, Deutsches Edelschwein, Duroc, and hybrid pigs (3 each). Human pancreata (n = 3) were obtained from regular multi-organ donors.
Antibodies
Table 1 lists the antibodies reactive with human CTP used in this study. Only antibodies specific for a unique CTP were used. For most antibodies, crossreactivity to porcine tissue was previously
Results
Figure 1 shows the histology of sections from the same pancreas using two different anti-human collagen type IV antibodies. While the monoclonal antibody (clone IV-4H12) in panel A did not crossreact with the porcine tissue, the antibody in panel B (rabbit antiserum) shows a clear and strong crossreactivity with procine collagen. After testing a panel of various anti-human CTP antibodies (Table 1) for crossreactivity to porcine tissue we could find the following CTPs as components in the
Discussion
Our results show that porcine pancreatic CTP can be detected by immunohistochemistry using crossreacting antibodies nominally specific for human proteins. To our knowledge this is the first investigation detecting fibronectin, vitronectin, and elastin in the porcine pancreas. Previously, van Deijnen et al.4, 5, 6 have shown collagen type I, III, IV, V, and laminin in the pancreas of Yorkshire pigs, which is in agreement with our results. However, we could show that these CTPs are also expressed
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank I. Chodnewska for excellent technical assistence. This work was supported by the German BMBF, IZKF of Wuerzburg University, grant D3.
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