Karyopherin Alpha 2-Expressing Pancreatic Duct Glands and Intra-Islet Ducts in Aged Diabetic C414A-Mutant-CRY1 Transgenic Mice

Figure 6

Coimmunostaining of islets for glucagon and KPNA2. Pancreas sections from aged group of mice [WTs (upper panels) and TGs (lower panels)] were costained with antibodies to glucagon (green) and KPNA2 (red) and stained with DAPI (blue) for nuclear staining. Bar, 20 μm. As a whole in the islet, the expression of KPNA2 was much lower in TGs than in WTs. Typical cells with KPNA2 and glucagon double-positive are denoted by yellow triangles in both WTs and TGs. A noticeable tendency exists among cells in the islet: those cells weakly stained with KPNA2, colocalized more in glucagon-positive cells than in non-glucagon-positive cells (upper panels), which suggests that the expression of KPNA2 in α-cells is lower than that in β-cells. This tendency for KPNA2 expression is discernible also in TGs (lower panels). In TGs, glucagon-positive cells were observed throughout the islets.