Abstract
Pancreatic β-cells, responsible for the synthesis and secretion of insulin in response to a glucose challenge, are located in the islets of Langerhans. Islets are comprised of a heterogeneous population of endocrine cells, including insulin-producing β-cells (approx. 65–70%), glucagon-secreting α-cells (20–25%), somatostatin-secreting δ-cells, and polypeptide (PP)-secreting cells. Much of the cellular and biochemical information concerning the mechanisms by which glucose stimulates insulin secretion by pancreatic β-cells has been obtained in studies using islets isolated from rodents (1). Rat islets provide an ideal source of insulin-producing tissue to study pancreatic β-cell function as insulin secretion by rat islets closely parallels insulin secretion by human islets and it is possible to obtain a large number of islets (300–600) from a single rat pancreas. With the widespread development of transgenic and gene knockout models, mouse islets represent an ideal system to study specific changes in gene expression on β-cell function. In this chapter, the methods that we routinely use to isolate islets from rat and mouse pancreata are described.
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© 2003 Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ
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Kelly, C.B., Blair, L.A., Corbett, J.A., Scarim, A.L. (2003). Isolation of Islets of Langerhans from Rodent Pancreas. In: Özcan, S. (eds) Diabetes Mellitus. Methods in Molecular Biology™, vol 83. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-377-1:003
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-377-1:003
Publisher Name: Humana Press
Print ISBN: 978-1-58829-148-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-59259-377-4
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