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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Sep 23.
Published in final edited form as: Ultramicroscopy. 2009 Mar 28;109(8):1094–1104. doi: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2009.03.043

Figure 7.

Figure 7

Zymogen granule swelling in live pancreatic acinar cells. (A) Electron micrograph of pancreatic acinar cells showing the basolaterally located nucleus (N) and the apically located ZGs. The apical end of the cell faces the acinar lumen (L). Bar = 2.5 μm. (B–D) The apical ends of live pancreatic acinar cells were imaged by AFM, showing ZGs (red and green arrowheads) lying just below the apical plasma membrane. Exposure of the cell to a secretory stimulus using 1 μM carbamylcholine, resulted in ZG swelling within 2.5 min, followed by a decrease in ZG size after 5 min. (n=8). The decrease in size of ZGs after 5 min is due to the release of secretory products such as a-amylase, as demonstrated by the immunoblot assay (E) [8].