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This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 297/6/E1331    most recent ajpendo.00479.2009v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Kilimnik, G. Articles by Hara, M. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Kilimnik, G. Articles by Hara, M.

INNOVATIVE METHODOLOGY

Quantification of pancreatic islet distribution in situ in mice

¹University of Chicago ²NIDDK, NIH

Submitted 4 August 2009 ; revised 29 September 2009 ; accepted in final form 30 September 2009

Tracing changes of specific cell populations in health and disease is an important goal of biomedical research. Precisely monitoring pancreatic beta-cell proliferation and islet growth is a challenging area of research. We have developed a method to capture the distribution of beta-cells in the intact pancreas of transgenic mice with fluorescence-tagged beta-cells with a macro written for ImageJ (rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/). Total beta-cell mass, islet number and size distribution are quantified with reference to specific parameters and location for each islet and for small clusters of beta-cells. The entire distribution of islets can now be plotted in three dimensions, and the information from the distribution on the size and shape of each islet allows a quantitative and qualitative comparison of changes in overall beta-cell area at a glance.

pancreatic beta-cells; islets; beta-cell mass; insulinoma; diabetes