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The Developmental Pattern of Somatostatin in the Embryonic and Fetal Rat Pancreas

N. McINTOSH^*, R. L. PICTET^,, S. L. KAPLAN and M. M. GRUMBACH

Departments of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California San Francisco San Francisco, California 94143
Departments of Pediatrics, University of California San Francisco San Francisco, California 94143

Reprint requests to: MMG, Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143.

Abstract

The ontogenesis of immunoreactive somatostatin in the embryonic and fetal rat pancreas has been measured by radioimmunoassay following acid extraction. Somatostatin (GIF) is detectable at 14 days gestation at a concentration of 1.6 x 10^–3 ng/pancreas. At term the content is 3.8 ng/pancreas, by 2 days neonatally, 8.3 ng/pancreas, and in the adult rat, 71 ng/pancreas though the concentration (expressed per µg DNA) is constant from 14–19 days of gestation and reaches a level characteristic of the fully differentiated pancreas by birth. The detection of GIF in cultured pancreatic explants in the absence of innervation indicates that synthesis can occur independent of neural influence.

Footnotes

^* Fleischner Fellow in Pediatric Endocrinology.

Recipient of a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health.

Supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institutes of Arthritis, Metabolism, and Digestive Diseases, NIH, USPHS, the National Foundation-March of Dimes and the American Diabetes Association.

Received December 23, 1976.