Illuminating the complete ß-cell mass of the human pancreas- signifying a new view on the islets of Langerhans

Joakim Lehrstrand, Wayne I. L. Davies, Max Hahn, Olle Korsgren, Tomas Alanentalo and Ulf Ahlgren ()
Additional contact information
Joakim Lehrstrand: Umeå University
Wayne I. L. Davies: Umeå University
Max Hahn: Umeå University
Olle Korsgren: Uppsala University
Tomas Alanentalo: Umeå University
Ulf Ahlgren: Umeå University

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Pancreatic islets of Langerhans play a pivotal role in regulating blood glucose homeostasis, but critical information regarding their mass, distribution and composition is lacking within a whole organ context. Here, we apply a 3D imaging pipeline to generate a complete account of the insulin-producing islets throughout the human pancreas at a microscopic resolution and within a maintained spatial 3D context. These data show that human islets are far more heterogenous than previously accounted for with regards to their size distribution and cellular make up. By deep tissue 3D imaging, this in-depth study demonstrates that 50% of the human insulin-expressing islets are virtually devoid of glucagon-producing α-cells, an observation with significant implications for both experimental and clinical research.

Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47686-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-47686-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47686-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().