Authors: JeYoung Ryu Antoni Siswanto Kenichi Harimoto Yohichi Tagawa
Publish Date: 2012/10/17
Volume: 22, Issue: 3, Pages: 549-556
Abstract
The pancreatic islet is an assembly of specific endocrine cells There are many conflicting reports regarding whether the acinus develops from single or multiple progenitor cells This study investigated the development and maintenance clonality of the pancreatic acinus and duct using a chimeric analysis with EGFP and DsRed2 transgenic mice Chimeric mice GR mice were obtained by the aggregation method using 8cell stage embryos from EGFP and DsRed2 transgenic mice The islets from the GR mice were chimeric and mosaic consisting of either EGFP or DsRed2positive populations as in previous reports On the other hand most acini developed from either EGFP or DsRed2 origin but some were chimeric Interestingly these chimeric acini were clearly separated into twocolor regions and were not mosaic Some large intralobular pancreatic ducts consisting of more than 10 cells were found to be chimeric but no small ducts made up of less than 9 cells were chimeric Our histological observations suggest that the pancreatic acinus polyclonally and directionally is maintained by multiple progenitor cells Pancreatic large ducts also seem to develop polyclonally and might result from the assembly of small ducts that develop from a single origin These findings provide useful information for further understanding pancreatic maintenanceThe pCAGGS expression vector was a kind gift from Dr Junichi Miyazaki Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine and Dr Izumu Saito the Institute of Medical Science the University of Tokyo We also thank all members of our laboratory for their excellent animal care This study was supported by a GrantinAid for Scientific Research B No 21300178 from the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science JSPS and a GrantinAid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas No 231190003 from the Ministry of Education Culture Sports Science and Technology MEXT of Japan
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