Endocrine Abstracts

Insulinomas are thought to be the result of reduced ß-cell death and hyperproliferation of this specific and highly differentiated cell type. Specific growth- factors are responsible for inducing ß- cell replication and might therefore be involved in insulinoma formation. Pluripotent islet progenitor cells are thought to be located at pancreatic ducts, which can give rise to novel islets as well as exocrine pancreas formation. TGFß1 signalling disruption has bee...

Objective: Establishment of rodent in vitro cell systems for the extension of the functional data about the recently cloned neuroendocrine marker secretagogin.Methods: 1. DNA-cloning; 2. Antibody generation; 3. Immunoblotting and Immunohistochemistry; 4. Cell-transfection; 5. Luciferase Reporter Assays; 6. ELISA.Results: 1. We characterized the rat homologue of human secretagogin (rat secretagogin) and demonstrated the homol...