Mice islets were isolated from BALB/c mice.
Pancreata are harvested, distended with University of Wisconsin (UW) solution, and digested with Liberase DL (0.5mg/ml) in a modified Ricordi chamber. Islets are separated from non-islet pancreatic tissue using UW/OptiPrep density gradient (1.100 and 1.060 g/cm3) on a COBE 2991 cell processor. Cells are cultured in RPMI-1640 medium.