Universidad de Murcia, Departamento de Biologia Celular e Histiologia
Abstract
Many surgical techniques are employed in
the treatment of severe obesity. A main consequence of
these techniques is the improvement of type 2 Diabetes
mellitus. Ghrelin is a gut hormone released in the gastric
fundus and corpus, which has been related to diabetic
improvement as mentioned in these papers. Sleeve
gastrectomy and Roux-en Y Gastric Bypass are surgical
techniques broadly employed in humans; both severely
reduce the gastric surface. Paradoxically, the serum level
of ghrelin in patients is preserved. We hypothesized
about the role of embryonic pancreatic epsilon cells,
which have the capacity to release ghrelin. We studied
the changes in the epsilon cells and differentiation
markers with immunostaining and ghrelin serum level
and after surgery. We employed euglycemic male Wistar
rats: two surgical groups (Sleeve gastrectomy and Roux-
en Y Gastric Bypass) and two control groups. We
reported a significant increase of ghrelin epsilon-cells in
the pancreas and basal serum after Sleeve gastrectomy
versus the control groups. The epsilon cellular increment
was related to neogenesis, as the neurogenin-3 marker
revealed. The Roux-en Y Gastric Bypass showed neither
epsilon cell increase nor basal serum changes in ghrelin
release. As a conclusion, we reported that the severe
suppression of the fundus gastric produced the recovery
of ghrelin released by the epsilon cells, which was
indicative of an ontogenic embryonic pancreatic
functio