Submitted on August 4, 2005
Accepted on December 12, 2005
Imaging Pancreatic B-cells in the Pancreas
Manami Hara1*, Restituto F Dizon1, Benjamin S Glick2, Catherine S Lee3, Klaus H Kaestner3, David W Piston4, and Vytautas P Bindokas5
1 Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
2 Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
3 Department of Genetics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
4 Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA
5 Department of Neurobiology, Pharmacology and Physiology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mhara{at}midway.uchicago.edu.
We have developed a method to visualize fluorescent protein-labeled 
-cells in the intact pancreas through combined reflection and confocal imaging. This method provides a three-dimensional view of the -cells in situ. Imaging of the pancreas from mouse insulin I promoter (MIP)-green (GFP) and red fluorescent protein (RFP) transgenic mice shows that islets, -cell clusters and single -cells are not evenly distributed but are aligned along the large blood vessels. We also observe the solitary -cells in both fetal and adult mice and along the pancreatic and common bile ducts. We have imaged the developing endocrine cells in the embryos using neurogenin3 (Ngn3)-GFP mice crossed with MIP-RFP mice. The dual-color coded pancreas from embryos (E15.5) shows a large number of green Ngn3-expressing proendocrine cells with a smaller number of red -cells. The imaging technique that we have developed coupled with the transgenic mice, in which -cells and -cell progenitors are labeled with different fluorescent proteins, will be useful for studying pancreatic development and function in normal and disease states.
