Large-scale electron microscopy database for human type 1 diabetes.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32424134.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-16287-5 and PMC identifier 7235089.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Autoimmune β-cell destruction leads to type 1 diabetes, but the pathophysiological mechanisms remain unclear. To help address this void, we created an open-access online repository, unprecedented in its size, composed of large-scale electron microscopy images ('nanotomy') of human pancreas tissue obtained from the Network for Pancreatic Organ donors with Diabetes (nPOD; www.nanotomy.org). Nanotomy allows analyses of complete donor islets with up to macromolecular resolution. Anomalies we found in type 1 diabetes included (i) an increase of 'intermediate cells' containing granules resembling those of exocrine zymogen and endocrine hormone secreting cells; and (ii) elevated presence of innate immune cells. These are our first results of mining the database and support recent findings that suggest that type 1 diabetes includes abnormalities in the exocrine pancreas that may induce endocrine cellular stress as a trigger for autoimmunity.
Medical subject headings
- Databases as Topic
- Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1
- Islets of Langerhans
- Microscopy, Electron