Pancreatic innervation in mouse development and β-cell regeneration

Pancreatic innervation is being viewed with increasing interest with respect to pancreatic disease. At the same time, relatively little is currently known about innervation dynamics during development and disease. The present study employs confocal microscopy to analyze the growth and development of sympathetic and sensory neurons and astroglia during pancreatic organogenesis and maturation. Our research reveals that islet innervation is closely linked to the process of islet maturation—neural cell bodies undergo intrapancreatic migration/shuffling in tandem with endocrine cells, and close neuro-endocrine contacts are established quite early in pancreatic development. In addition, we have assayed the effects of large-scale β-cell loss and repopulation on the maintenance of islet innervation with respect to particular neuron types. We demonstrate that depletion of the β-cell population in the rat insulin promoter (RIP)-cmycER mouse line has cell-type-specific effects on postganglionic sympathetic neurons and pancreatic astroglia. This study contributes to a greater understanding of how cooperating physiological systems develop together and coordinate their functions, and also helps to elucidate how permutation of one organ system through stress or disease can specifically affect parallel systems in an organism.