Transplantation of the pancreas and pancreatic islets is the most efficient means of treating type 1 diabetes mellitus. However, the shortage of donors is a serious problem. To solve the problem, methods for fabricating artificial pancreas or islets in vitro have attracted more attention. In this study, we developed spheroid culture plate and fabricated pancreatic beta-spheroids using the plate. And, we proposed to fabricate cylindrical organoid (cylindroid) by centrifugation of spheroids in hollow fiber.

　A Spheroid culture plate was made with oxygen-permeable polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) by using both negative mold and positive one(Fig. 1). This plate has ~1700 round shape wells in a triangular arrangement (diameter; 500 μm, interspace; 50 μm, depth; 600 μm). After 3 days of culture, mouse insulinoma cells formed spheroids with a diameter of ~150 μm. The oxygen supply through bottom of PDMS plates is attributed to increase the proliferation and insulin secretion of spheroids significantly. The spheroids were assembled in a hollow fiber by centrifugation within 4 minutes and then formed cylindroid(Fig. 2).

Fig.1 Spheroid culture plate

Fig. 2 Pancreatic Cylindroid