Fetal pancreatic stem cells as a valuable source of insulin secreting beta cell

초록

During pancreatic development, endocrine and exocrine cell types arise from common prcursors in foregut endoderm. It has been reported that insulin secreting beta cells could be differentiated from the stem cells of both embryonic and adult nature. Beta cell generation using embryonic stem cell owing to their pluri-potential differentiation to a variety of cell types, whereas poor population and latency of the adult pancreatic stem cells are an impediment to their practical use for cell replacement therapy. We speculated that fetal stem cells may share common beneficial characteristics of both embryonic and adult stem cells. However, little is known about the nature of the fetal pancreatic stem cells and their efficiency to differentiate into beta cells. We hypothesized that fetal pancreas could provide a stem cells with beneficial profiles and differentiate into insulin secreting beta cells.