Fig. 1.

Accumulation of superparamagnetic iron oxide in porcine islets.

A. Graph shows dose-dependent increase of iron accumulation in islets labeled with Resovist. Islet cells labeled with Resovist (100 µg Fe/mL) were found to contain 13.2 ± 3.2 pg of total iron per cell, assuming that pancreatic islets contained 2000 cells on average. Values are expressed as means ± standard deviations of three independent experiments. Differences were considered significant at p values ≤ 0.05. ^*p ≤ 0.05 versus unlabeled.

B. Prussian blue staining of labeled islets shows intracellular superparamagnetic iron oxide s (blue color) in all labeled islets. Islets were counterstained with nuclear fast red (red color).

C. Transmission electron microscopy of labeled islets shows lysosome or endosome containing superparamagnetic iron oxides (arrows). G = dense granule, ISG = insulin secreting granule, M = mitochondria, N = nucleus