Journal d'imagerie et de dynamique moléculaires
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Abstrait

Hormonal manipulation induces differentiation of pancreatic progenitor cells into insulin secreting islet β-cells

Xiong Wen

Diabetes is a kind of metabolic disease, which causes considerable morbidity in the world. Although pancreas transplantation and islet transplantation has prominent future, we still confront the main difficulty of organ shortage. Thus, a primary and fundamental effective therapy for diabetes is to develop ways to increase beta cell numbers.Here, we reported that under the stimuli of homones, pancreatic duct epithelial cells, also known as pancreatic progenitor cells, could be differented into insulin-secreting islet β- cells.In this study, we collected pregnant rat serum and added to the culturing medium of isolated rat pancreatic duct epithelial cells. After 7 days of culturing, the pancreatic progenitor cells will be aggregrated. Then we compared the gender difference of the pancreatic progenitor cells, and also the dosage of pregnant serum on the efficiency of differentiation. As observed, all cells treated with pregnant serum experienced expansion (A-D), aggregation (E-H), and islet-like cells formation (I-L) stages. Higher concentration of pregnant serum treated cells (L,J) generate more islet-like cells compared to those of lower ones (I, K). Pancreatic duct epithelial cells isolated from female rats formed larger islet-like sphere compared to those of male ones. However, pancreatic duct epithelial cells cultured with FBS could not form islet-like cells  (N, low concentration of FBS control; O, high concentration of FBS control). Then the differented islet-like cells were determined by dithizone staining (P) and aggregated pancreatic duct cells were determined by insulin staining (M). Judged from these two pictures, no matter the aggregrated cells or the sphere-shaped ones are capable of secreting insulin.In conclusion, the pancreatic progenitor
cells could be differented to insulin-secreting islet β- cells by the pregnant serum, which indicats the therapeutic potential of hormone therapy in preventing and/or treating diabetes.