The microscopic image analysis of pancreatic Islet of Langerhans morphology is crucial for the investigation of diabetes and metabolic diseases. Besides the general size of the islet, the percentage and relative position of glucagon-containing alpha-, and insulin-containing beta-cells is also important for pathophysiological analyses, especially in rodents. Hence, the ability to identify, quant...

Aged tissues usually show a decreased regenerative capacity accompanied by a decline in functionality. During aging pancreatic islets also undergo several morphological and metabolic changes. Besides proliferative and regenerative limitations, endocrine cells lose their secretory capacity, contributing to a decline in functional islet mass and a deregulated glucose homeostasis. This is linked t...

Marked pancreatic islet cell hyperplasia was found in a patient with laxative-induced diarrhoea. It is suggested that laxative abuse might be an important aetiological factor in patients with pancreatic islet cell hyperplasia and the watery diarrhoea syndrome but in whom no hormonal excess can be demonstrated.

Prospective isolation and characterization of progenitor cells is a paradigmatic strategy for studies of organ development. However, extraction of viable cells, fractionation of lineages, and in vitro analysis of progenitors from the fetal pancreas in experimental organisms like mice has proved challenging and has not yet been reported for human fetal pancreas. Here, we report isolation of panc...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) is an autoimmune disorder resulting out of T cell mediated destruction of pancreatic beta cells. Immunomodulatory properties of mesenchymal stem cells may help to regenerate beta cells and/or prevent further destruction of remnant, unaffected beta cells in diabetes. We have assessed the ability of umbilical cord derived MSCs (UCMSCs) to ...

Human embryonic stem (hES) cells with the capacity of self-renewal and multilineage differentiation are promising sources for generation of pancreatic islet cells for cell replacement therapy in diabetes. Here we induced hES cells into insulin-producing cells (IPCs) in a stepwise process which recapitulated islet organogenesis by directing cells through the stages resembling definitive endoderm...

Pancreatic islets possess an autonomous mechanism of blood flow regulation, independent of that of the exocrine pancreas. To study islet vascular regulation without confounding effects of the exocrine blood vessels, we have developed a technique enabling us to isolate single pancreatic islets and then to perfuse them using their endogenous vasculature for distribution of the medium. This made i...

Anesthesia affects general hemodynamics and regulation of organ perfusion. We used colored microspheres to measure pancreatic islet blood flow in conscious rats at two time points, during either hyperglycemia or hypoglycemia. This method, using black and green microspheres, was validated by comparison with previous microsphere experiments and by lack of effect of a nonmetabolizable glucose anal...

OBJECTIVE In the present study, the diagnostic value of somatostatin receptor scintigraphy (SRS) was evaluated in the preoperative workup in patients with pancreatic duct cancers and islet cell tumors, as well as in the follow-up of these patients. METHODS Twenty-six patients with suspected primary pancreatic duct cancers and 48 patients with islet cell tumors were studied. The SRS was perfor...

A major obstacle to successful islet transplantation for both type 1 and 2 diabetes is an inadequate supply of insulin-producing tissue. This need for transplantable human islets has stimulated efforts to expand existing pancreatic islets and/or grow new ones. To test the hypothesis that human adult duct tissue could be expanded and differentiated in vitro to form islet cells, digested pancreat...