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Departments of 1Surgery, 2Molecular and Integrative Physiology, and 3Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Submitted 16 November 2005 ; accepted in final form 13 April 2006
To investigate the role of transforming growth factor (TGF)-
family signaling in the adult pancreas, a transgenic mouse (E-dnSmad4) was created that expresses a dominant-negative Smad4 protein driven by a fragment of the elastase promoter. Although E-dnSmad4 mice have normal growth, pancreas weight, and pancreatic exocrine and ductal histology, beginning at 46 wk of age, E-dnSmad4 mice show an age-dependent increase in the size of islets. In parallel, an expanded population of replicating cells expressing the E-dnSmad4 transgene is found in the stroma between the enlarged islets and pancreatic ducts. Despite the marked enlargement, E-dnSmad4 islets contain normal ratios and spatial organization of endocrine cell subtypes and have normal glucose homeostasis. Replication of cells derived from primary duct cultures of wild-type mice, but not E-dnSmad4 mice, was inhibited by the addition of TGF-
family proteins, demonstrating a cell-autonomous effect of the transgene. These data show that, in the adult pancreas, TGF-
family signaling plays a role in islet size by regulating the growth of a pluripotent progenitor cell residing in the periductal stroma of the pancreas.
islet growth; diabetes; nestin; transgenic mice; elastase; transforming growth factor-
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