Glucose Homeostasis in the Teleost Fish Tilapia: Insights from Brockmann Body Xenotransplantation Studies1

Certain teleost fish have large anatomically discrete islet organs called Brockmann bodies (BBs). When transplanted into streptozotocin diabetic athymic nude mice, tilapia BBs provide long-term normoglycemia. This has afforded us the opportunity to examine tilapia islet in vivo function in a non-piscine environment and compare this with in vivo function in the donor species. As expected, fasting and non-fasting glycemic levels in long-term …