Summary
An ultrastructural study of endocrine cells was performed in the pancreas of rats treated with a single dose of streptozotocin on the day of birth. Most of the B cells present at birth were destroyed by streptozotocin but some survived and could again synthesize insulin after eliminating their altered fragments in phago-lysosome structures. New B cells were produced primarily by the formation of new islets from the small pancreatic ducts. A study of mitosis in colchicine treated animals showed that most B cells present on day 4 were formed by mitosis of undifferentiated cells. No significant division of preexisting differentiated B cells could be shown in streptozotocin treated rats.
B cell regeneration in this newborn rat model is thus explained primarily by budding of new islets from the ducts.
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M.C.D. is Assistant and C.R. is Maître Assistant at the P and M Curie University. This work was supported in part by ATP Inserm 79–106
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Dutrillaux, M.C., Portha, B., Rozé, C. et al. Ultrastructural study of pancreatic B cell regeneration in newborn rats after destruction by streptozotocin. Virchows Archiv B Cell Pathol 39, 173–185 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02892846
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02892846