Glucose-independent insulin and glucagon secreted from ventral pancreas sharing a similar pattern in healthy adult rat

Elevated blood glucose concentration due to food intake will trigger insulin secretion from the dorsal pancreas has been extensively studied. This increased intracellular insulin level can stimulate glucagon release from intra-islets. However, the interaction between glucagon and insulin under a fasting state is unknown. To explore the relationship, we partially removed the ventral and dorsal pancreas on wild-type adult rats. The glucose tolerance test was conducted to measure influence of the surgery on the integrity function of the pancreas. The fasting insulin/glucagon level before and after surgery were measured by the ELISA kit. The statistical analyses indicated that the ventral removal of the pancreas had higher fasting glucose than that of dorsal removal. And only the ventral removal group showed significantly increased basal insulin and basal glucagon levels. Our findings showed differential role of the ventral pancreas in response to a glucose-free stimulus and also provided the possible in vitro target for developing the anti-hyperglycemic drugs.