Pancreatic islets secrete hormones that play a key role in regulating blood glucose levels (glycemia). Age-dependent impairment of islet function and concomitant dysregulation of glycemia are major health threats in aged populations. However, the major causes of the age-dependent decline of islet function are still disputed. Here we demonstrate that aging of pancreatic islets in mice and humans...

OBJECTIVE Treatment of diabetic patients by pancreatic islet transplantation often requires the use of islets from two to four donors to produce insulin independence in a single recipient. Following isolation and transplantation, islets are susceptible to apoptosis, which limits their function and probably long-term islet graft survival. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS To address this issue, we e...

The aspiration of a pancreatic mass can provide tissue for the diagnosis of a malignancy. Traditionally, computed tomography (CT) and trans-abdominal ultrasonography (US) have been used to guide the aspiration of a pancreatic mass. Recently, endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) has been introduced as an alternative to CT/US guidance because of superior imaging of the pancreas achieved by EUS. The most c...

Electrolyte fluxes are fundamental to normal endocrine pancreatic function. Adenosine triphosphatases (ATPases) are enzyme systems believed to modulate electrolyte movements across membranes in a number of cell types. This study was undertaken to measure cation-dependent ATPases of rat pancreatic islets. In addition, we compared effects of substances which influence endocrine pancreatic functio...

Name Type Company Catalog Number Comments Dithizone reagent Dissolve 5mg Dithizone in 5 ml of DMSO in a 50 ml conical tube. Add 45 ml of normal saline and mix gently. Filter with a 60 cc syringe and a 0.22 "m syringe filter into a new 50 ml tube. Store at 4 OC, until use. Add 1 ml to each 35 mm counting Grid-plate, when needed. PBS Buffer HBSS Buffer Isolation soln. Buffer HBSS containing 10 mM...

for an infant the parents must ultimately decide"-with the doctor helping the parents to understand the choices.5 In their responses to the present case (22 August, p 567) both the BMA and the British Paediatric Association have reiterated these principles. We believe that in the absence of a clear code to which society adheres there is no justification for usurping parents' rights, or for beli...

Treatment for, and the prognosis of, type-1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) has progressed dramatically during the last century, but the disease remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Although precise fi gures are not available, over 1 million United States citizens currently live with the disease, with approximately 30,000 new cases diagnosed in the US each year. The total number of people...

Identified over a dozen years ago in the brain and pancreatic islet, βIV-spectrin is critical for the local organization of protein complexes throughout the nervous system. βIV-Spectrin targets ion channels and adapter proteins to axon initial segments and nodes of Ranvier in neurons, and βIV-spectrin dysfunction underlies ataxia and early death in mice. Despite advances in βIV-spectrin researc...

Pancreatic islet cell transplantation is an attractive treatment of type 1 diabetes (T1D). The success enhanced by the Edmonton protocol has fostered phenomenal progress in the field of clinical islet transplantation in the past 5 years, with 1-year rates of insulin independence after transplantation near 80%. Long-term function of the transplanted islets, however, even under the Edmonton proto...

Background: Oral vanadyl sulfate (vanadium) induces normoglycemia, proliferates beta cells and prevents pancreatic islet atrophy in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Soteriological method is used to quantitate the proliferative effects of vanadium on beta-cell numbers and islet volumes of normal and diabetic rats. Methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were made diabetic with intravenous s...