Demonstration of Activity of Gastrin in Mammalian Pancreas

THE gastrin peptides are now known to be the hormonal mediator of the Zollinger–Ellison (ZE) syndrome¹, but the search for a non-insulin, non-histamine and/or a gastrin-like secretagogue in the normal pancreas has yielded conflicting results. Hallenbeck et al.² and Lai³, using bioassay procedures, failed to detect gastrin activity in extracts of normal pancreas from a variety of mammals including man, hog and monkey, but in man⁴ and in pig, panther, man, rabbit, albino rat and guinea-pig⁵ gastrin-containing cells have been detected by antigastrin immunofluorescence in normal pancreatic tissue. The discrepancy between the results of extraction/bioassay and immunofluorescence detection could be due either to the presence of an immunoreactive but biologically inactive gastrin deptide or its precursor in the normal pancreas, or the failure to extract and/or detect by the extraction and assay procedures used the biologically active gastrin present perhaps in very small amounts in the normal pancreas.