Fig 3. Glibenclamide preserves a sizable mass of beta cells in adult NOD mice.

a) HE staining of pancreas sections shows representative islets of the 3 groups of NOD mice, which we compared. At the end of the experiment, untreated control mice aged 28 wks showed few islets with many of the residual cells featuring a poorly stained cytoplasm. In contrast, mice treated with either dose 1 or dose 2 glibenclamide featured many more and larger islets, which mostly comprised healthy looking cells. Insulitis was prominent in the islets of all mice groups. The dot and dash lines outline the borders of islets and insulitis mantle (L), respectively. Bar, 100 μm. b) At the end of the experiment, the numerical density (Nv) of beta cells was significantly higher in the glibenclamide dose 2-treated NOD mice (solid bars), than in untreated controls (open bars). The mice receiving dose 1 of glibenclamide featured an intermediate phenotype. c) The volume density (Vv) of beta cells was similarly modified by the glibenclamide treatments. Data are mean + SEM values of the number of pancreas sections indicated within the bars. * p< 0.05, ** p< 0.01, *** p< 0.001 vs control group, as tested by ANOVA.