Fig. 3.

FVIIa promotes cytokine-induced caspase-3 cleavage in primary human beta cells. (a) Untreated or FVIIa pre-treated (10 nmol/l, 6 h) human islets were stimulated with a cytokine mixture of IL-1β, TNF-α and IFN-γ (Cyt.) for 72 h, then mildly dispersed using trypsin to generate single islet cells. Cells were stained with DAPI (blue), insulin antibody (red) and cleaved caspase-3 antibody (green) and visualised by fluorescence microscopy. Islets from five different donors were used and images show results from one representative donor. Scale bar, 50 μm. (b) Cells (~2,000/group) were counted and the number of cells double-positive for insulin and cleaved caspase-3 are depicted in the graph. Results are means ± SEM from five experiments. *p < 0.05 for indicated comparison, using paired Student’s t test