Fig. 4.

Changes in islet, but not exocrine microvascular morphology, with age in the pancreata of NOD mice. a Representative maximum-projection confocal image over 10 μm depth of pancreas section from NOD mouse infused with texas-red labeled tomato lectin (red). Islet is circled with a dotted line, as determined from brightfield and DAPI-labeling morphology. b Mean vessel diameter in islet (Endo) and exocrine tissue (Exo) in 5- and 10-week-old NOD female mice. c As in b for vascular coverage. d Data for islet vessel diameter and vascular coverage in b, c plotted by mouse. Scale bar in a represents 100 μm. Error bars represent s.e.m. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001 comparing groups indicated (t-test data in b–d). Data in b represents in total 65 islets (37 islets, at 5w, 28 islets at 10w) and 27 exocrine regions (21 at 5w, 6 at 10w) from 7 NOD mice per time point. Data in c represents in total 112 islets (49 at 5w, 63 at 10w) and 25 exocrine regions (12 at 5w, 13 at 10w) from 9 NOD mice per time point