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The pancreas is an organ of the digestive system and endocrine system of vertebrates. In humans, it is located in the abdomen behind the stomach and functions as a gland. The pancreas is a mixed or heterocrine gland, i.e., it has both an endocrine and a digestive exocrine function. [2] 99% of the pancreas is exocrine and 1% is endocrine.
There are about 1 million islets distributed throughout the pancreas of a healthy adult human. While islets vary in size, the average diameter is about 0.2 mm. [5]:928 Each islet is separated from the surrounding pancreatic tissue by a thin, fibrous, connective tissue capsule which is continuous with the fibrous connective tissue that is interwoven throughout the rest of the pancreas.
The pancreas arises as two separate bodies, the dorsal pancreas and the ventral pancreas. The dorsal pancreas appears first, at around day 26, opposite the developing hepatic duct, and grows into the dorsal mesentery. The ventral pancreas develops at the junction of the hepatic duct and the rest of the foregut.
Endocrine function: This involves the secretion of hormones directly into the bloodstream. Pancreas produces hormones such as insulin and glucagon, which help regulate blood sugar level. Insulin is released when blood sugar levels are high, and it promotes the uptake of glucose by cells, reducing blood sugar (hypoglycemia).
The pancreatic duct or duct of Wirsung (also, the major pancreatic duct due to the existence of an accessory pancreatic duct) is a duct joining the pancreas to the common bile duct. This supplies it with pancreatic juice from the exocrine pancreas , which aids in digestion .
Tools used to study beta-cell function are expanding rapidly with technology. For instance, transcriptomics have allowed researchers to comprehensively analyze gene transcription in beta-cells to look for genes linked to diabetes. [2] A more common mechanism of analyzing cellular function is calcium imaging.
Before the function of alpha cells was discovered, the function of their metabolic product, glucagon, was discovered. The discovery of the function of glucagon coincides with the discovery of the function of insulin. In 1921, Banting and Best were testing pancreatic extracts in dogs that had had their pancreas removed.
The pancreas, located in the abdomen, below and behind the stomach, is both an exocrine and an endocrine gland. The alpha and beta cells are the endocrine cells in the pancreatic islets that release insulin and glucagon and smaller amounts of other hormones into the blood. Insulin and glucagon influence blood sugar levels.