Exocrine pancreas under experimental conditions

Summary The in vitro formation of paracrystalline structures after addition of high concentrations of amino acids to the incubation medium was investigated in pancreatic lobules and pancreatic homogenates. It could be shown that even in the homogenate, pCPA induced the formation of paracrystalline structures which exhibited the same ultrastructural arrangement as seen in the in vivo induced paracrystalline inclusions in the RER of the rat pancreas. In correlation with the morphological alterations, the functional consequences to the secretory process, i.e. amylase discharge, discharge of pulse-labeled proteins and incorporation of ³H-leucine into pancreatic proteins, were studied in pancreatic lobules. Two different approaches were used. Firstly, the effect of pCPA-pretreatment of rats and secondly, the effect of higher pCPA concentrations in the incubation medium on the secretory process in untreated pancreatic lobules were studied. A nonparallelism of inhibition of the three different steps of the secretory process depending, with respect to its extent, on time after pCPA-application (4–72 h) and on the concentration of pCPA (1 · 10^-5 to 1 · 10^-2 M) in the incubation medium was found. In addition to specific effects probably due to pCPA and to the paracrystalline inclusions, unspecific alterations, particularly accompanying degenerative processes after in vivo pretreatment, could be differentiated.