Diving into the fine details of pancreatic transcriptomes
The pancreas contains exocrine and endocrine glands which are essential for the regulation of blood sugar levels. The compartments in which these glands are located contain a high diversity of cells including acinar cells, ductal cells, alpha, beta, delta, pancreatic polypeptide (PP), and epsilon cells in the islets of Langerhans. There are also more common cell types and cells from the immune system, thereby rendering the pancreas a prime target for single-cell studies.
This is particularly valuable as single-cell studies on pancreatic tissue can contribute to our understanding of diabetes, pancreatitis, and pancreatic cancer, which is one of the deadliest diseases.
The hunt for novel treatments for diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is characterized by an almost complete depletion of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. Thus, regeneration of beta cells through beta-cell neogenesis represents a major therapeutic strategy to cure the disease. Using a mouse model with severe insulin resistance that leads to high insulin secretion and massive beta-cell neogenesis can help uncover the origins of newly formed beta cells and the molecular programs required for high insulin secretion.
With the help of Asteria and Cytonaut, a team of researchers at the Saint-Antoine Research Hospital in Paris characterized the pancreatic islet cell transcriptome in this model at single-cell resolution.
Getting in-depth into insulin-producing cells
Samples from healthy mice pancreas were dissociated, the suspensions processed with Asteria™ and data processing performed with Cytonaut™ The major cell types relevant to pancreatic islets were identified in proportions commonly described in the literature, including a well-represented beta cell population, as well as alpha, delta and gamma cells. The intuitive and manual annotation enabled the identification of clusters of bihormonal alpha/gamma cells, of great importance for common precursor cells studies. The high-resolution analysis also detected rare cell types occasionally found in the pancreatic islets such as stellate, ductal, and vascular cells, and immune cells whose roles in the healthy pancreatic islets are still unknown.
Empowered autonomy
Receive a T-shirt with your single-cell data!
Ask us
