Islets of Langerhans are a pancreatic endocrine compartment consisting of insulin-producing β cells together with several other hormone-producing cells. While some insulin-producing cells or immature pancreatic cells have been generated in vitro from ES and iPS cells, islets with proper functions and a three-dimensional (3D) structure have never been successfully produced. To test whether islet...

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

Introduction: Islet transplantation has become a promising treatment for type I diabetes mellitus due to recent success since the development of the Edmonton Protocol. Islet culture prior to transplantation is standard practice in several clinical islet programs. High-density islet culture is desirable because it reduces space and handling requirements during culture, but it exacerbates oxygen ...

GLP-1 and its analog have been used in diabetes treatment; however, the direct alteration of gene expression profile in human islets induced by GLP-1 has not been reported. In present study, transcriptional gene expression in the liraglutide-treated human islets was analyzed with 12 human U133A chips including 23000 probe sets. The data compared between liraglutide and control groups showed a s...

T cells play an important role in the pathogenesis of diabetes in the nonobese diabetic (NOD) mouse. CD8 cytotoxic T cell lines and clones were generated from the lymphocytic infiltrate in the islets of Langerhans of young (7-wk-old). NOD mice by growing them on (NOD x B6-RIP-B7-1)F1 islets. These cells proliferate specifically to NOD islets and kill NOD islets in vitro. The cells are restricte...

(Received for publication, April 25, 1959) It is no doubt that diabetes mellitus occurs as a result of deficiency in insulin due to hypofunction of the pancreatic Langerhans' islet cells, but no one nowardays would call diabetes mellitus a disease caused by a mere change in the Langerhans' islets. At present, diabetes mellitus is considered to be due to disturbance of some endocrine organsl)2)3...