Ultrastructure and electron immunocytochemistry of insulin-producing B-cell tumors from transgenic mice: comparison with counterpart human tumors.

This paper reports on an ultrastructural and electron-microscopic immunocytochemical study of pancreatic B cells from normal mice, pancreatic B cells and derivative tumors from transgenic mice, and tissue from human pancreatic B-cell tumors. In normal and neoplastic B cells from both species, typical immature and mature beta-granules (with spherical cores of variable density) were observed, whereas typical beta-granules with a crystalloid core were only present in human B cells (normal and tumor). A small number of atypical granules were found in distinct neoplastic cells which contained no typical beta-granules. The atypical granules were smaller (100-200 nm diameter) than typical beta-granules (250-450 nm diameter) seen in other cells. Immunoreactivity for proinsulin was localized only to immature granules, whereas insulin and C-peptide immunoreactivities were demonstrated in atypical, immature, and mature granules. In transgenic mouse and human B-cell tumors, insulin immunoreactivity was consistently weaker than the immunostaining for C-peptide. An intragranular, topographic segregation of immunoreactive C-peptide was observed in a population of transgenic tumor cells. Our results showed similarities in antigenic distribution and only slight differences in morphology between human and mouse B cells. Therefore, the transgenic mouse system may prove to be an effective model for studying mammalian B-cell tumorigenesis.