Abstract
Zinc transporter 8 (ZnT8) has been identified as a β-cell-specific Zinc transporter expressed in insulin-secretory granules. Recent genome wide association studies indicated that Arg325Trp polymorphism of Slc30a8 encoding ZnT8 is associated with susceptibility to type 2 diabetes. As a first step towards understanding the pathogenic role of ZnT8 in diabetes, we evaluated the expression of ZnT8 in mouse pancreas.A rabbit polyclonal antibody specific to ZnT8 was raised. The raised ZnT8 antibody reacted with mouse, rat and human ZnT8 expressed in β-cells without cross-reacting with other ZnTs. ZnT8 was expressed in α-, β- and PP-cells, but not in δ-cells, in adult mouse islets. During mouse pancreas development, ZnT8 expression was detected as early as embryonic day 15.5 when β-cells started to appear in large numbers. Finally, the expression level of ZnT8 was compared with pancreas of two diabetic model mice, db/db mice and Akita mice. In both animal models of diabetes, ZnT8 expression was remarkably downregulated in the early stage of diabetes. As a conclusion, ZnT8 is expressed in multiple lineages of endocrine cells in the pancreas. Our findings suggest that downregulation of ZnT8 may be associated with impaired function of β-cells in diabetes.
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