Over the last two decades, increased availability of human pancreatic tissues has allowed for major expansions in our understanding of islet biology in health and disease. Indeed, studies of fixed and frozen pancreatic tissues, as well as efforts using viable isolated islets obtained from organ donors, have provided significant insights toward our understanding of diabetes. However, the procedures associated with islet isolation result in distressed cells that have been removed from any surrounding influence. The pancreas tissue slice technology was developed as an in situ approach to overcome certain limitations associated with studies on isolated islets or fixed tissue. In this Perspective, we discuss the value of this novel platform and review how pancreas tissue slices, within a short time, have been integrated in numerous studies of rodent and human islet research. We show that pancreas tissue slices allow for investigations in a less perturbed organ tissue environment, ranging from cellular processes, over peri-islet modulations, to tissue interactions. Finally, we discuss the considerations and limitations of this technology in its future applications. We believe the pancreas tissue slices will help bridge the gap between studies on isolated islets and cells to the systemic conditions by providing new insight into physiological and pathophysiological processes at the organ level. Article Highlights Human pancreas tissue slices represent a novel platform to study human islet biology in close to physiological conditions. Complementary to established technologies, such as isolated islets, single cells, and histological sections, pancreas tissue slices help bridge our understanding of islet physiology and pathophysiology from single cell to intact organ. Diverse sources of viable human pancreas tissue, each with distinct characteristics to be considered, are available to use in tissue slices for the study of diabetes pathogenesis.

中文翻译：

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弥合差距：器官和组织捐赠者的胰腺组织切片用于糖尿病发病机制的研究

在过去的二十年中，人类胰腺组织可用性的增加使得我们对健康和疾病中的胰岛生物学的理解得到了重大扩展。事实上，对固定和冷冻胰腺组织的研究，以及使用从器官捐献者获得的活的分离胰岛的努力，为我们对糖尿病的理解提供了重要的见解。然而，与胰岛分离相关的程序会导致受损细胞免受任何周围影响。胰腺组织切片技术被开发为一种原位方法，以克服与孤立胰岛或固定组织研究相关的某些局限性。在本视角中，我们讨论了这个新颖平台的价值，并回顾了胰腺组织切片如何在短时间内整合到啮齿动物和人类胰岛研究的众多研究中。我们表明，胰腺组织切片允许在扰动较小的器官组织环境中进行研究，范围从细胞过程、胰岛周围调节到组织相互作用。最后，我们讨论了该技术在未来应用中的考虑因素和局限性。我们相信，胰腺组织切片将通过提供对器官水平的生理和病理生理过程的新见解，有助于弥合孤立胰岛和细胞研究与系统条件之间的差距。文章亮点 人类胰腺组织切片代表了在接近生理条件下研究人类胰岛生物学的新平台。作为对分离胰岛、单细胞和组织学切片等现有技术的补充，胰腺组织切片有助于我们对胰岛生理学和病理生理学从单细胞到完整器官的理解。不同来源的活人类胰腺组织，每种都具有需要考虑的独特特征，可用于组织切片用于糖尿病发病机制的研究。