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Updated: May 23, 2026

Pancreatic Islet Isolation and Purification from Lewis Rats Using Enzymatic Digestion and Density-Gradient Separation
Published on: April 3, 2026
An atypical case of islet cell hyperplasia in a Wistar rat
Norimitsu Shirai1, Alexandros Papanikolaou, Rick Perry
1Pfizer Global Research and Development, Groton, Connecticut, USA. norimitsu.shirai@pfizer.com
Abstract:
The present article describes an unusual proliferative islet finding observed incidentally in a young male Wistar rat in a 2-week toxicity study. Histologically, the islet lesion was characterized by diffuse enlargement of the islets, which consisted of peripheral proliferation of non-insulin-containing islet cells surrounding normal-appearing insulin-containing cells in the center. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report of spontaneous proliferative islet lesion composed of non-insulin-containing cells in young rats.
