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Concept
Pancreatic islets
Summary
The pancreatic islets or islets of Langerhans are the regions of the pancreas that contain its endocrine (hormone-producing) cells, discovered in 1869 by German pathological anatomist Paul Langerhans. The pancreatic islets constitute 1–2% of the pancreas volume and receive 10–15% of its blood flow. The pancreatic islets are arranged in density routes throughout the human pancreas, and are important in the metabolism of glucose.
There are about 1 million islets distributed throughout the pancreas of a healthy adult human, each of which measures an average of about 0.2 mm in diameter.:928 Each islet is separated from the surrounding pancreatic tissue by a thin fibrous connective tissue capsule which is continuous with the fibrous connective tissue that is interwoven throughout the rest of the pancreas.:928
Hormones produced in the pancreatic islets are secreted directly into the blood flow by (at least) five types of cells. In rat islets, endocrine cell types are distributed as follows:
Alpha cells producing glucagon (20% of total islet cells)
Beta cells producing insulin and amylin (≈70%)
PP cells (gamma cells or F cells) producing pancreatic polypeptide (
Official source
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