A bright future for glucagon and alpha cell biology

Long lagging behind insulin, glucagon research has caught up in large part, thanks to technological breakthroughs. Here we review how the field was propelled by the development of novel techniques and approaches. The glucagon radioimmunoassay and islet isolation are methods that now seem trivial, but for decades they were crucial in defining the biology of the pancreatic alpha cell and the role of glucagon in glucose homeostasis. More recently, mouse models have become the main workhorse of this research effort, if not of biomedical research in general. The mouse model allowed detailed mechanistic studies that are revealing alpha cell functions beyond its canonical glucoregulatory role. A recent profusion of gene expression and transcription regulation studies is providing new vistas into what constitutes alpha cell identity. In particular, the combination of transcriptomic techniques with functional recordings promises to move molecular guesswork into real-time physiology. The challenge right now is not to get enamored with these powerful techniques and to make sure that the research continues to be transformative and paradigm shifting. We should imagine a future in which the biology of the alpha cell will be studied at single-cell resolution, non-invasively, and in real time in the human body.