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The Comparative Anatomy of Islets

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Islets of Langerhans

Abstract

In the past 20 years, numerous publications on a variety of mammalian and non-mammalian species have appeared in the literature to supplement the excellent comparative work performed in the 1970s and 1980s by the Falkmer, Epple, and Youson groups. What emerges is that islets are much more complex than once thought and show a lot of similarities in rodents and higher primates. The diversity of lifestyles, metabolic demands, and diets has most likely influenced the great diversity in both structure and cell-type content of islets in lower vertebrate species. In this chapter, I try to provide an overview of the evolution from endocrine cell types in invertebrates to the higher mammals and focus on what has been reported in the literature and some of our own experiences and also include a description of other hormones reported to be found in islets.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Nils Wierup, Carsten Godfredsen, and Yana Kvicerova for providing some of the tissue samples used in Fig. 4. I would also like to thank my graduate student Carsten Gustavsen for his excellent work in this area of comparative morphological analysis of different species and finally Jan Nygård Jensen, Ole Madsen for helpful comments on the chapter.

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  1. Histology and Imaging Department, Novo Nordisk, Novo Nordisk Park, DK2760, Måløv, Denmark

    R. Scott Heller

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Correspondence to R. Scott Heller .

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  1. Department of Clinical Sciences and Education, Sodersjukhuset, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Md. Shahidul Islam

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Heller, R.S. (2015). The Comparative Anatomy of Islets. In: Islam, M. (eds) Islets of Langerhans. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6686-0_2

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