Glucagon cells
Pancreatic alpha cell
Also searched as Pancreatic alpha cell.
You want them available: they survive the attack that destroys beta cells, so they are still there to work with.
In depth
The glucagon cells sitting inside the same islet. They are not damaged in type 1, and a subset of them can be persuaded to become insulin-producing cells — which makes them the most promising source of new beta cells a person already owns.
What drives it
Nitric oxide precursor increases it.
Arginine is one of the strongest signals an alpha cell answers. Verbatim: 'Intravenous Arginine Stimulates Glucagon Secretion More Than Equimolar Alanine, Leucine, Glutamine, and Proline in Humans' (J Endocr Soc 2025, doi 10.1210/jendso/bvaf139). A second, independent stream in the perfused rat pancreas: arginine 'stimulated biphasic glucagon (IRG) secretion' (J Clin Invest 1974, doi 10.1172/JCI107823). intravenous arginine. doi 10.1210/jendso/bvaf139
What it drives
It increases Beta-cell renewal.
The reservoir a person already owns. Verbatim: 'a cluster of cycling alpha cells, identified through single-cell human islets transcriptomics, may serve as a beta cell regenerative reservoir and may be readily transdifferentiated into functional human beta cells' (Cell Rep Med, S2666379124006037). The inference is forced by arithmetic: proliferation in vivo is 'modest (~0.2%-0.5%) and cannot explain the 300%-700% increase in beta cell mass', and 'despite the dramatic increase in human beta cell mass, there is NO accompanying increase in alpha cell mass'. transdifferentiation is inferred from the mass arithmetic and lineage markers, not from a lineage-tracing experiment in humans. PMID 40544428
Blends that modulate it
Each blend page names this pathway and carries the study behind its claim.
See it on the map
Open the causal map to follow this pathway upstream and downstream, arrow by arrow, each with its study.