Pancreatic alpha and beta cells are globally phase-locked

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Documents

  • Huixia Ren
  • Yanjun Li
  • Chengsheng Han
  • Yi Yu
  • Bowen Shi
  • Xiaohong Peng
  • Shufang Wu
  • Xiaojing Yang
  • Sneppen, Kim
  • Liangyi Chen
  • Chao Tang
  • Tianming Zhang

The Ca2+ modulated pulsatile glucagon and insulin secretions by pancreatic alpha and beta cells play a crucial role in glucose homeostasis. However, how alpha and beta cells coordinate to produce various Ca2+ oscillation patterns is still elusive. Using a microfluidic device and transgenic mice, we recorded Ca2+ signals from islet alpha and beta cells, and observed heterogeneous Ca2+ oscillation patterns intrinsic to each islet. After a brief period of glucose stimulation, alpha and beta cells' oscillations were globally phase-locked. While the activation of alpha cells displayed a fixed time delay of similar to 20 s to that of beta cells, beta cells activated with a tunable period. Moreover, islet a cell number correlated with oscillation frequency. We built a mathematical model of islet Ca2+ oscillation incorporating paracrine interactions, which quantitatively agreed with the experimental data. Our study highlights the importance of cell-cell interaction in generating stable but tunable islet oscillation patterns.

Original languageEnglish
Article number3721
JournalNature Communications
Volume13
Issue number1
Number of pages16
ISSN2041-1723
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 28 Jun 2022

    Research areas

  • PULSATILE INSULIN-SECRETION, GLUCAGON-SECRETION, CA2+ OSCILLATIONS, ELECTRICAL-ACTIVITY, MOUSE ISLETS, SUSTAINED OSCILLATIONS, PLASMA-INSULIN, BASAL INSULIN, CYCLIC-AMP, GLUCOSE

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