Figure 1.
Cell labeling in a HCP cluster of n = 4.
Figure 2.
The fraction of β cells able to burst fb, and their synchronization λ, are less influenced by cluster size nβ in HCP clusters.
Plotted are mean and standard deviation of the corresponding 10 replicate clusters at each condition.
Figure 3.
The HCP clusters are more robust against perturbations to its architecture than the SCP clusters.
At normal coupling strength of gc = 200 pS (left columns), both cluster types are robust against up to 50% β-cell loss in the cluster. When the coupling is compromised with reduced gc values (middle and right columns), the SCP clusters are more affected by β-cell loss. Dashed lines are the mean and the 2 standard deviations (SD) of completely uncoupled β cells.
Figure 4.
Comparison of the bursting period Tb between HCP and SCP β-cell clusters.
Figure 5.
Function of a β-cell cluster versus its size nβ.
Left and middle columns: at normal coupling strength and no loss of β cells, no significant dependence is observed in the HCP β-cell clusters (solid lines). This is true even when the intercellular coupling is impaired to a very low value of 25 pS. Right column: when there is extensive β-cell loss at 70%, marginal functional gain is observed in fb and [Ca].
Figure 6.
Function of β-cell clusters versus nc.
Plotted are results of a HCP-323 cluster. Dashed lines are the basal level values and 2 SD that would be expected from a cluster of un-coupled β-cells
Figure 7.
Function of β-cell clusters versus intercellular coupling strength gc.
Figure 8.
Threshold of β-cell loss that would lead to complete loss of bursting synchronization.
Table 1.
Parameters and their values.
Table 2.
Heterogeneity in parameter values.
Figure 9.
In a 2D cluster nc = 4 for SCP (a) and nc = 6 for HCP (b). In 3D the numbers become nc = 6 for SCP (c) and nc = 12 for HCP (d).
Figure 10.
Scheme of cell labeling in an HCP β-cell cluster.
Table 3.
Number of cells that can be packed in HCP and SCP clusters
Figure 11.
The bursting, spiking and silent cell types.