Isolation and Transduction of Rat Pancreatic Islets

Pancreatic islets from 8- to 10-week-old male Wistar rats (Taconic, Lille Skensved, Denmark) were isolated by collagenase digestion and hand-picked under a stereo microscope [13 (link)]. The isolated islets were precultured for 24 h before adenoviral transduction in RPMI 1640 with UltraGlutamine (Lonza, Vallensbaek, Denmark) supplemented with 10% newborn calf serum (Biological Industries, Kibbutz Beit Haemek, Israel), 100 U/ml penicillin and 100 μg/ml streptomycin (Life Technologies, Paisley, UK) in 5% CO₂ at 37°C. All animal experiments were approved by the local ethics committee and performed in accordance with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals [14 ].