Pancreatic islets of Langerhans display complex intracellular calcium changes in response to glucose that include fast (seconds), slow ( approximately 5 min), and mixed fast/slow oscillations; the slow and mixed oscillations are likely responsible for the pulses of plasma insulin observed in vivo. To better understand the mechanisms underlying these diverse patterns, we systematically analyzed ...

Pancreatic islets of Langerhans contain several specialized endocrine cell types, which are commonly identified by the expression of single marker genes. However, the established marker genes cannot capture the complete spectrum of cellular heterogeneity in human pancreatic islets, and existing bulk transcriptome datasets provide averages across several cell populations. To dissect the cellular...

Metallothionein overexpression prolongs grafts survival in the early phase of pancreatic islet transplantation Xiaoyan Li

Islets of Langerhans are microorgans scattered throughout the pancreas, and are responsible for synthesizing and secreting pancreatic hormones. While progress has recently been made concerning cell differentiation of the islets of Langerhans, the mechanism controlling islet morphogenesis is not known. It is thought that these islets are formed by mature cell association, first differentiating i...

TABLE 1 Landmarks in the history of the islets of Langerhans 1869 First description of pancreatic islets by Langerhans 1902 First tumour of the islets described by Nicholls 1922 Discovery of insulin by Banting and Best 1923 Discovery of glucagon by Murlin and colleagues 1924 Harris postulates the possibility of insulinoma 1927 Wilder extracts insulin from a malignant pancreatic tumour explored ...

OBJECTIVES Ghrelin is a peptide hormone that has been shown to have numerous central and peripheral effects. The central effects including GH secretion, food intake, and energy homeostasis are partly mediated by Kiss1- KissR signaling pathway. Ghrelin and its receptor are also expressed in the pancreatic islets. Ghrelin is one of the key metabolic factors controlling insulin secretion from the ...

Evidence exists for the presence of a discrete tissue renin-angiotensin system (RAS) in mouse and rat pancreas that is thought largely to be associated with the vasculature. To investigate this in the human pancreas, and to establish whether the cellular sites of RAS components include the islets of Langerhans, we used immunocytochemistry to localise the expression of angiotensin II (AT1) recep...

Islets of Langerhans are microorgans scattered throughout the pancreas, and are responsible for synthesizing and secreting pancreatic hormones. While progress has recently been made concerning cell differentiation of the islets of Langerhans, the mechanism controlling islet morphogenesis is not known. It is thought that these islets are formed by mature cell association, first differentiating i...