Fig. 6: The impact of oxygenation on viability and function of human pancreatic islets encapsulated in BEAM systems under a hypoxic cell culture condition.

A A schematic representation of the experimental setup. B Operating electrical current and voltage of iEOG recorded during a 72-h experiment. C Dual fluorescence staining of islets encapsulated in BEAM systems subjected to a 24-h incubation under hypoxic condition (1% oxygen), with and without supplementary oxygenation from iEOGs. Scale bar: 500 μm. Green: Acridine Orange, Live cells; Red: Ethidium homodimer, Dead cells. Dead cells in bottom right panel are thought to be a cutting artifact from processing the annular hydrogel. D H&E staining of encapsulated islets after incubation under a normoxic condition and a hypoxic condition, with and without supplementary oxygenation from iEOG. The experiment in Fig. (C, D) was repeated independently twice with similar results. E Immunofluorescence staining of the encapsulated islets after 24-h incubation under a normoxic and a hypoxic culture condition, with and without supplementary oxygenation from iEOG. Red: Insulin; Green: Glucagon; Blue: Nuclear staining. F Quantification of insulin secretion from islets encapsulated in BEAM systems, following a 24-h incubation under normoxic condition (20% oxygen) (n = 2) and hypoxic condition (1% oxygen), with and without oxygen supplementation from the iEOG (n = 2). Figure (A) was created in BioRender. Pham, T. (2025) https://BioRender.com/o34farp.