Mathematical modeling of the electrical activity of the pancreatic β-cell has been
extremely important for understanding the cellular mechanisms involved in
glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. Several models have been proposed over the last 30
y, growing in complexity as experimental evidence of the cellular mechanisms involved has
become available. Almost all the models have been developed based on experimental data
from rodents. However, given the many important differences between species, models of
human β-cells have recently been developed. This review summarizes how modeling of
β-cells has evolved, highlighting the proposed physiological mechanisms underlying
β-cell electrical activity.
Intra-islet communication via electrical, paracrine and autocrine signals, is highly dependent on the organization of cells within the islets and is key for an adequate response to changes in blood glucose and other stimuli. In spite of the fact that relevant structural differences between mouse and human islet architectures have been described, the functional implications of these differences remain only partially understood. In this work, aiming to contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between structural and functional properties of pancreatic islets, we reconstructed human and mice islets in order to perform a structural comparison based on both morphologic and network-derived metrics. According to our results, human islets constitute a more efficient network from a connectivity viewpoint, mainly due to the higher proportion of heterotypic contacts between islet cells in comparison to mice islets.
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