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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Jul 1.
Published in final edited form as: J Endocrinol. 2020 Jul;246(1):69–78. doi: 10.1530/JOE-19-0535

Figure 4. Virgin beta cells are maintained at the islet periphery in the absence of UCN3.

Figure 4.

(A-B) Immunofluorescence of insulin, UCN3, and GLUT2 in islets from (A) control and (B) Ucn3-null mice. Insulin and UCN3 co-localize in beta cells, while GLUT2 is expressed on the membrane of the beta cells. Arrows point to virgin beta cells, which are insulin-positive but UCN3-negative and GLUT2-negative in control mice and insulin-positive but GLUT2-negative in Ucn3-null mice. Scale bars indicate 50 μm. (C) Quantification of insulin-positive, UCN3-negative cells in control mice and insulin-positive, csGLUT2-negative cells in control and Ucn3-null mice, as percentage of total beta cells. (D-E) Immunofluorescence of insulin, UCN3, and G6PC2 in islets from (A) control and (B) Ucn3-null mice. Insulin, UCN3, and G6PC2 are co-expressed in the majority of beta cells in control mice. Arrows point to virgin beta cells that are insulin-positive but UCN3- and G6PC2-negative. (F) Quantification of insulin-positive, UCN3-negative cells in control mice and insulin-positive, G6PC2-negative cells in control and Ucn3-null mice. For both C and F, there is no quantification for insulin+ UCN3- cells in the Ucn3-null mice as all cells are UCN3- and thus not representative of the virgin beta cell population. n = 3 animals per group, at least 10 islets and 500 cells counted per animal. Error bars reflect SEM.