Mesoscopic Optical Imaging of the Pancreas-Revisiting Pancreatic Anatomy and Pathophysiology

Correlation of the anatomical variations of pancreatic blood vessels and occurrence of diseases of pancreas

OBJECTIVE

Aim: The research aims to confirm or reject the hypothesis on the possible relationship between the influence of changes in pancreatic vascular variations on the mechanisms of occurrence of pancreatic diseases based on the collected scientific literature..

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Materials and Methods: The bibliosemantic, bibliographic, statistical research methods were used in the research. Scientometric databases Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, and archives of scientific papers such as Google Scholar and Research Gate for the last 6 years (2018-2023) were used to form a study basis.

CONCLUSION

Conclusions: Based on the analyzed sources, blood supply variants to the pancreas do not influence the development of pathological processes. However, vein and artery features impact treatment choices and surgical outcomes. Main and additional pancreatic ducts, and the common bile duct, may be linked to diseases. Atypical pancreatic artery branching affects surgical tactics and increases bleeding risk.

Illuminating the complete ß-cell mass of the human pancreas- signifying a new view on the islets of Langerhans

Pancreatic islets of Langerhans play a pivotal role in regulating blood glucose homeostasis, but critical information regarding their mass, distribution and composition is lacking within a whole organ context. Here, we apply a 3D imaging pipeline to generate a complete account of the insulin-producing islets throughout the human pancreas at a microscopic resolution and within a maintained spatial 3D context. These data show that human islets are far more heterogenous than previously accounted for with regards to their size distribution and cellular make up. By deep tissue 3D imaging, this in-depth study demonstrates that 50% of the human insulin-expressing islets are virtually devoid of glucagon-producing α-cells, an observation with significant implications for both experimental and clinical research.

3D Optical Molecular Imaging of the Rodent Pancreas by OPT and LSFM

The rodent pancreas is the prevalent model system for preclinical diabetes research. However, due to the compound endocrine-exocrine organization of the gland, with the endocrine islets of Langerhans scattered by the thousands throughout the much greater exocrine parenchyma, stereological assessments of endocrine cell mass, commonly insulin-producing ß-cells, are exceedingly challenging. In recent years, optical mesoscopic imaging techniques such as optical projection tomography (OPT) and light sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) have seen dramatic developments, enabling 3D visualization of fluorescently labeled cells in mm- to cm-sized tissues with μm resolution. Here we present a protocol for 3D visualization and "absolute" quantitative assessments of, for example, islet mass throughout the volume of rodent pancreata with maintained spatial context.

3D imaging of human organs with micrometer resolution - applied to the endocrine pancreas

The possibility to quantitatively study specific molecular/cellular features of complete human organs with preserved spatial 3D context would have widespread implications for pre-clinical and clinical medicine. Whereas optical 3D imaging approaches have experienced a formidable revolution, they have remained limited due to current incapacities in obtaining specific labelling within large tissue volumes. We present a simple approach enabling reconstruction of antibody labeled cells within entire human organs with preserved organ context. We demonstrate the utility of the approach by providing volumetric data and 3D distribution of hundreds of thousands of islets of Langerhans within the human pancreas. By assessments of pancreata from non-diabetic and type 2 diabetic individuals, we display previously unrecognized features of the human islet mass distribution and pathology. As such, this method may contribute not only in unraveling new information of the pancreatic anatomy/pathophysiology, but it may be translated to essentially any antibody marker or organ system.