LY6H is a marker of human pancreatic delta cells

The identification of cell surface markers specific to pancreatic islet cell subsets is important for both the study of islet biology and for investigating the pathophysiology of diseases in which these cell types are lost or damaged. Analysis of publicly available single-cell RNAseq data showed that LY6H transcripts are highly enriched in the delta cells of the pancreas. This finding was confirmed using immunofluorescence analysis of histological sections of human pancreas, and flow cytometric analysis of human islet preparations. We found that expression of LY6H was robustly associated with pancreatic delta cells in samples derived from both control and diabetic donors. Furthermore, we demonstrate that antibodies against LY6H can be used to substantially enrich for live delta cells from preparations of human islets. This study identified LY6H as a novel cell surface marker of human pancreatic delta cells-a finding that will aid in the identification and characterisation of this important cell type.