Transplantation of macroencapsulated pancreatic islets within semipermeable membranes is a promising approach for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Encapsulation beneficially isolates the implants from the host immune system. Deleteriously however, it also limits oxygen supply to the cells. This creates challenges in loading islets at the amount and density required to meet the practical demands of clinical usage. To overcome this challenge, we investigated the feasibility of using macroporous scaffolds made of an oxygen-permeable polymer, poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) by culturing pancreatic islet-like three-dimensional tissue made of a rat pancreatic beta cell line on the scaffolds. With external oxygenation, the density and function of cells on the PDMS scaffold were more than three times and almost two times higher than those without oxygenation, respectively. This suggests that the oxygenation afforded by the PDMS scaffolds allows for high-density loading of islet tissue into the devices.

大囊化胰岛在半透膜内的移植是治疗1型糖尿病的一种有前途的方法。包封有利于将植入物与宿主免疫系统隔离。然而，有害的是，它也限制了向细胞的氧气供应。这就给胰岛的装载量和密度带来了挑战，以满足临床使用的实际需求。为了克服这一挑战，我们通过在支架上培养由大鼠胰岛β细胞系制成的胰岛样三维组织，研究了使用由透氧性聚合物聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）制成的大孔支架的可行性。在外部充氧的情况下，PDMS支架上的细胞密度和功能分别比没有氧合作用的细胞高三倍和近两倍。这表明PDMS支架提供的氧合允许将胰岛组织高密度加载到装置中。