Fig. 1.
Inactivation of furin in islets of Langerhans: reduced insulin release and increased insulin content. (A) PCR analysis of deletion of fur exon 2 in islets of Langerhans of furflox/flox mice (WT) and furflox/flox, Pdx1-Cre mice (KO). Primers were designed to correspond to intronic sequences outside fur exon 2 and loxP sequences. DNA fragment sizes (bp) are indicated. (B) Glucose tolerance test on 2-month-old male mice. Mice were fasted overnight and i.p. injected with 1 mg/g of glucose at time point 0. Data represent mean values ± SEM, n = 10 mice per genotype. (C) Islet insulin content was extracted after the perifusion experiment (see D) and measured by using RIA. Data represent means ± SEM (n = 4 experiments). *, P < 0.05. (D) Islets of 2-month-old male mice were perifused 16 h after isolation. A 15-min preperifusion with basal medium containing 1.4 mM glucose was followed with a sequence of 15-min exposures to medium containing either 10 mM glucose alone or supplemented with 10 mM GLP1, 20 mM Arg, or 30 mM K+. Data represent means ± SEM (n = 4 experiments).