Visualization of exocytosis in pancreatic acinar cells by fluorescence microscopy

The control of regulated exocytosis is still largely unknown in epithelial cells (12). While much progress has been made in understanding constitutive secretion we still know only in outline the mechanisms of secretory granule fusion (5). Progress requires methods of real-time imaging of granule exocytosis and in recent years a variety of optical methods have been applied towards understanding epithelial cell secretion. The results obtained have ranged from simply counting the numbers of fused granules to insights into the molecular mechanisms that regulate fusion and fission