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Unperturbed islet α‐cell function examined in mouse pancreas tissue slices
Author(s) -
Huang YaChi,
Rupnik Marjan,
Gaisano Herbert Y.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the journal of physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.802
H-Index - 240
eISSN - 1469-7793
pISSN - 0022-3751
DOI - 10.1113/jphysiol.2010.200345
Subject(s) - islet , electrophysiology , glucagon , pancreas , cell type , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , cell , exocytosis , neuroscience , immunocytochemistry , enteroendocrine cell , chemistry , endocrinology , medicine , diabetes mellitus , insulin , secretion , biochemistry , endocrine system , hormone
Non‐technical summary Critical investigation into pancreatic islet α‐cell biology in health and diabetes has been sparse and inconsistent because of technical difficulties in islet isolation and dispersion into single cells. We have circumvented these difficulties by employing the pancreas slice preparation. We functionally characterized (electrophysiologically) the α‐cells in their in situ native state, then loaded the tested cells with biocytin dye to subsequently confirm the cell identities by immunocytochemistry. We characterized a very large number of α‐cells, which showed a wide‐range distribution in the electrophysiological parameters of several ion channels (ATP‐sensitive K + , Na + and Ca 2+ currents) and capacitance changes as measure of exocytosis of glucagon granules. This could explain the apparent inconsistency of previous reports on α‐cells that inadvertently showed skewed data due to insufficient sampling of α‐cells. Our innovative approaches will enable future studies into elucidating α‐cell dysregulation in diabetes.