Isolated mouse pancreatic beta -cells show cell-specific temporal response pattern

Department of Integrative Medical Biology, Section for Histology and Cell Biology, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden The length of the silent lag time before elevation of the cytosolic free Ca 2+ concentration ([Ca 2+ ] i ) differs between individual pancreatic -cells. One important question is whether these differences reflect a random phenomenon or whether the length of lag time is inherent in the individual -cell. We compared the lag times, initial dips, and initial peak heights for [Ca 2+ ] i from two consecutive glucose stimulations (with either 10 or 20 mM glucose) in individual ob/ob mouse -cells with the fura 2 technique in a microfluorimetric system. There was a strong correlation between the lengths of the lag times in each -cell (10 mM glucose: r = 0.94, P