Jo Junghyo, Hara Manami, Ahlgren Ulf, Sorenson Robert, Periwal Vipul
Laboratory of Biological Modeling; National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; National Institutes of Health; Bethesda, MD USA.
Department of Medicine; The University of Chicago; Chicago, IL USA.
Islets. 2012 Jan-Feb;4(1):10-9. doi: 10.4161/isl.18660. Epub 2012 Jan 1.
The islets of Langerhans, ranging in size from clusters of a few cells to several thousand cells, are scattered near large blood vessels. While the β-cell mass in mammals is proportional to body weight, the size ranges of islets are similar between species with different body sizes, possibly reflecting an optimal functional size. The large range of islet sizes suggests a stochastic developmental process. It is not fully understood how islets develop to reach such size distributions, and how their sizes change under certain physiological and pathological conditions such as development, pregnancy, aging, obesity, and diabetes. The lack of a high-resolution in vivo imaging technique for pancreatic islets implies that the only data available to elucidate the dynamics of islet development are cross-sectional quantifications of islet size distributions. In this review, we infer biological processes affecting islet morphology in the large by examining changes of islet size distributions. Neonatal islet formation and growth is shown as a particular example of developing a mathematical model of islet size distribution. Application of this modeling to elucidate islet changes under other conditions is also discussed.
胰岛大小不一，从几个细胞的簇状到数千个细胞不等，分散在大血管附近。虽然哺乳动物的β细胞量与体重成正比，但不同体型物种的胰岛大小范围相似，这可能反映了一种最佳功能大小。胰岛大小的广泛差异表明其发育过程具有随机性。目前尚不完全清楚胰岛是如何发育到如此大小分布的，以及在发育、怀孕、衰老、肥胖和糖尿病等某些生理和病理条件下它们的大小如何变化。缺乏用于胰腺胰岛的高分辨率体内成像技术意味着，用于阐明胰岛发育动态的唯一可用数据是胰岛大小分布的横断面量化。在本综述中，我们通过检查胰岛大小分布的变化来推断影响胰岛整体形态的生物学过程。新生儿胰岛的形成和生长被作为建立胰岛大小分布数学模型的一个具体例子展示出来。还讨论了将该模型应用于阐明其他条件下胰岛变化的情况。
