It has been suggested that pancreatic gastrin is stored in islet A1 (or D) cells. There are, however, conspicuous histological and histochemical differences between antral gastrin cells and A1 cells, indicating the storage of different peptide molecules in these two types of cell. Furthermore, pancreatic tumours producing gastrin are composed of cells that have no features in common with A1 cells but often resemble antral gastrin cells. We have now tested a large number of gastrin antisera, most of which were specific for the C-terminal, bioactive, sequence of gastrin-17, on both unfixed and formaldehyde-fixed tissue, and found that all antisera reacted with antral gastrin cells but not with A1 cells. Also, radioimmunoassay able pancreatic gastrin occurs at levels far below those expected if the A1 cells stored gastrin7. We conclude that if gastrin-like peptides occur in the pancreatic A1 cells they must be devoid of the bioactive, C-terminal sequence. While studying the ontogeny of the rat gastrin cell we have, however, found, at a certain stage of development, true gastrin cells in the pancreas.

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