title: Neonatal pancreatic cells redifferentiate into both neural and pancreatic lineages.
abstract: Studies of islet neogenesis have suggested that the regeneration of islet cells can be achieved through redifferentiation of pre-existing islet cells. However, this hypothesis is largely unproven and fails to account for the diversity of observed islet neogenesis. Here we show that cultured neonatal pancreatic cells dedifferentiate into betaIII tubulin-expressing precursors, which then expand and redifferentiate into both neural and pancreatic lineage progenies. Redifferentiation happens not only in the islet cells, but also in the ductal cells that may represent what are called ductal origin "pancreatic stem cells". The in vitro redifferentiation of neonatal pancreatic cells recapitulates the embryonic development by sequential endocrine differentiation accompanied by the coexpression of neuronal marker betaIII tubulin with endocrine hormones until terminal differentiation. The neuronal differentiation of pancreatic cells, however, occurs prior to endocrine differentiation and gradually becomes dominant, thus implying a default neuronal lineage specification for cultured pancreatic cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Regenerative Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Science, Yokohama City University, Yokohama 236-0004, Japan.
authors.forename: Wenping
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Tomonori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hirose
authors.forename: Momotaro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ishikawa
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Oshima
authors.forename: Syu-Ichi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hirai
authors.forename: Shigeo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ohno
authors.forename: Hideki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Taniguchi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D015415:Biomarkers; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D019070:Cell Lineage; D002469:Cell Separation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D007328:Insulin / Q000235:genetics; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology*; D010179:Pancreas / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D007328:Insulin