The current available insulin therapies decrease blood glucose but are associated with the risk of developing hypoglycemia. Glucagon is a counter regulatory hormone and we hypothesize that a fixed ratio of insulin and a long-acting glucagon-analogue can reduce the risk of hypoglycemia. To define an appropriate ratio we tested two fixed glucagon doses (3.5 and 10 nmol/kg) in combination with inc...

In this Special Issue of the Int. J. Dev. Biol., we summarize our own studies on the development of the mouse endocrine pancreas, with special emphasis on the cell lineage relationships between the four islet cell types. Considerable knowledge concerning the ontogeny of the endocrine pancreas has been gained in recent years, mainly through the use of two complementary genetic approaches in mice...

The intraislet insulin hypothesis for the signaling of the glucagon secretory response to hypoglycemia states that a decrease in arterial glucose --> a decrease in beta-cell insulin secretion --> a decrease in tonic alpha-cell inhibition by insulin --> an increase in alpha-cell glucagon secretion. To test this hypothesis in humans, a hyperinsulinemic- euglycemic ( approximately 5.0 mmol/l [90 m...

The dysregulation of glucose-inhibited glucagon secretion from the pancreatic islet α-cell is a critical component of diabetes pathology and metabolic disease. We show a previously uncharacterized [Ca(2+)]i-independent mechanism of glucagon suppression in human and murine pancreatic islets whereby cAMP and PKA signaling are decreased. This decrease is driven by the combination of somatostatin, ...

the goal of this study was to determine whether ghrelin affects the mean plasma concentrations ofmetabolic parameters such as thyroxine (t4), triiodothyronine (t3), growth hormone (gh), insulin, glucagon,glucose, fatty acid and urea in the goats fed different energy content in diets. sixteen goats were randomly dividedinto 4 groups. animals in groups 1 and 2 were fed 100 % and animals in groups...

AIM To identify the types of endocrine cells in the pancreas of the Sunda porcupine (Hystrix javanica) and its immunolocalization. MATERIALS AND METHODS Five adult H. javanica were used without sexual distinction. The presences of endocrine cells (glucagon, insulin, somatostatin, and pancreatic polypeptide [PP]) in pancreatic tissues were detected using the avidin-biotin-peroxidase complex me...

Insulin secretion is controlled by a complex set of factors that include not only glucose but amino acids, catecholamines, and intestinal hormones. We report that a novel glucagon-like peptide, co-encoded with glucagon in the glucagon gene is a potent insulinotropic factor. The glucagon gene encodes a proglucagon that contains in its sequence glucagon and additional glucagon-like peptides (GLPs...

Cytoplasmic ATP and Ca are implicated in current models of glucose’s control of glucagon and insulin secretion from pancreatic aand b-cells, respectively, but little is known about ATP and its relation to Ca in a-cells. We therefore expressed the fluorescent ATP biosensor Perceval in mouse pancreatic islets and loaded them with a Ca indicator. With total internal reflection fluorescence microsc...

OBJECTIVE Although both insulin and glucagon are intimately involved in the regulation of glucose homeostasis, the intrinsic control of glucagon secretion, including the biogenesis and exocytosis of glucagon-containing granules, is far less understood compared with that of insulin. As Brefeldin A-inhibited guanine nucleotide exchange protein 3 (BIG3) is a negative regulator of insulin-granule b...