Highlights
- Stem cells can now be instigated to develop into beta cells of pancreas to produce insulin
- Progenitor cells or the immature cells can be stimulated by certain signals to develop into a particular organ
- Cell stimulation may initiate the cells to change their polarity (sense of direction) to form a particular organ, in this case the pancreas
The Cells’ Development Depends on their Sense of Direction The research group, which in addition to Henrik Semb consists of Ph.D. Zarah Löf-Öhlin and assistant professor Pia Nyeng, among others, originally set out to study how the body creates the complex piping systems that transport fluids and gasses in our organs.
They wanted to understand the machinery for instructing progenitor cells into their different destinies. To their surprise, the mechanism turned out to be simple. According to Assistant Professor Pia Nyeng, these processes are mainly controlled by the progenitors’ ability to tell up from down (the cells’ so-called polarity).
’It turns out that the same signal - the so-called epidermal growth factor (EGF) pathway - control both the formation of pipes and beta cells through polarity changes. Therefore, the development of pancreatic progenitor into beta cells depends on their orientation in the pipes. It is a really amazing and simple mechanism, and by affecting the progenitor cells’ so-called polarity we can control their conversion into beta cells’, says Pia Nyeng.
The study is mainly based on tests performed on mice, but the researchers decided to examine whether the same mechanism can be found in human cells.
The researchers expect regulation of cell polarity to be key to the development of many other human cell types, for example nerve cells. This may contribute to the development of stem cell therapy targeted at other diseases.
- Zarah M. Löf-Öhlin, Pia Nyeng, Matthew E. Bechard, Katja Hess, Eric Bankaitis, Thomas U. Greiner, Jacqueline Ameri, Christopher V. Wright & Henrik Semb. EGFR signalling controls cellular fate and pancreatic organogenesis by regulating apicobasal polarity, Nature Cell Biology (2017) DOI:10.1038/ncb3628
Source-Eurekalert