File:Mouse- pancreas differentiation model.jpg

Dynamic differentiation potential within the exocrine pancreas.

Multipotent pancreatic progenitors (E11.5-E13.5) express the digestive enzyme Cpa1, which is later restricted to acinar cells (E14.5-adult), together with Muc1 and Hnf1β [20].

While Cpa1+ cells cease contribution to islets from approximately E13.5 [7], Muc1+/Hnf1β+ cells continue to give rise to Neurog3+ endocrine precursors (pink nuclei) and islets (blue and green) through at least E15.5.

From around birth, Muc1+ and Hnf1β+ cells no longer contribute to the endocrine lineage, and mature islets are maintained by self-replication of those pre-existing. However, it remains a formal possibility that a subpopulation exists within the ductal network (dark blue cytoplasm), expressing neither Muc1 nor Hnf1β, from which β-cells continue to arise after birth.

Original File name: 1471-213X-10-38-11-l.jpg

Exocrine-to-endocrine differentiation is detectable only prior to birth in the uninjured mouse pancreas. Kopinke D, Murtaugh LC. BMC Dev Biol. 2010 Apr 8;10:38. PMID: 20377894 | PMC2858732 | BMC

Kopinke and Murtaugh BMC Developmental Biology 2010 10:38 doi:10.1186/1471-213X-10-38

© 2010 Kopinke and Murtaugh; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.