Abstract
BACKGROUND: Recent research has challenged the viewpoint that pancreatic islets operate independently of surrounding exocrine tissues, revealing a bidirectional blood flow between the endocrine and exocrine pancreas. However, a methodology for simultaneous evaluation of pancreatic microhemodynamics and oxygen profiles remains elusive. METHODS: To generate the common microcirculatory framework, we employed laser Doppler and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy to assess pancreatic microcirculation with concurrent acquisition of microhemodynamic and oxygen data as time-series measurements. The framework's analytical pipeline, featuring outlier adjustment using the boxplot algorithm and comparative normalization strategies (Z-score, min-max, L2, and median scaling), was subsequently validated in a T2DM mouse model with insulin and liraglutide-administered groups. Heat maps and chord plots were used to reveal the integrated dynamics of the associations between microcirculatory blood perfusion and oxygen saturation. RESULTS: The established common microcirculatory framework effectively characterized integrated microhemodynamics and oxygen profiles, with min-max normalizing the microhemodynamic and oxygen. T2DM mice exhibited decreased blood perfusion, reduced red blood cell tissue fraction, diminished oxygen saturation, and lower hemoglobin concentration within the pancreatic microcirculation. Treatment with liraglutide significantly ameliorated these microcirculatory impairments, partially restoring the balance between blood perfusion and oxygen saturation and normalizing the disrupted coherence between oxygenated hemoglobin and speed-resolved blood perfusion. CONCLUSIONS: The common microcirculatory framework provides a novel methodology for monitoring, visualizing, and assessing integrated pancreatic microcirculatory function, with liraglutide demonstrating enhanced efficacy in ameliorating microcirculatory dysfunction in T2DM.