ABSTRACT

Intra-islet communication via electrical, paracrine and autocrine signals, is highly dependent on the organization of cells within the islets and is key for an adequate response to changes in blood glucose and other stimuli. In spite of the fact that relevant structural differences between mouse and human islet architectures have been described, the functional implications of these differences remain only partially understood. In this work, aiming to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between structural and functional properties of pancreatic islets, we reconstructed human and mice islets in order to perform a structural comparison based on both morphologic and network-derived metrics. According to our results, human islets constitute a more efficient network from a connectivity viewpoint, mainly due to the higher proportion of heterotypic contacts between islet cells in comparison to mice islets.

摘要

通过电、旁分泌和自分泌信号进行的胰岛内通讯高度依赖于胰岛内细胞的组织，并且是对血糖和其他刺激的变化做出充分反应的关键。尽管已经描述了小鼠和人类胰岛体系结构之间的相关结构差异，但这些差异的功能含义仍然只是部分理解。在这项工作中，为了有助于更好地理解胰岛的结构和功能特性之间的关系，我们重建了人类和小鼠的胰岛，以便根据形态学和网络衍生指标进行结构比较。根据我们的结果，从连通性的角度来看，人类胰岛构成了一个更有效的网络，