Adult pancreatic β-cells are formed by self-duplication rather than stem-cell differentiation

Yuval Dor, Juliana Brown, Olga I. Martinez and Douglas A. Melton ()
Additional contact information
Yuval Dor: Harvard University
Juliana Brown: Harvard University
Olga I. Martinez: Harvard University
Douglas A. Melton: Harvard University

Nature, 2004, vol. 429, issue 6987, 41-46

Abstract: Abstract How tissues generate and maintain the correct number of cells is a fundamental problem in biology. In principle, tissue turnover can occur by the differentiation of stem cells, as is well documented for blood, skin and intestine, or by the duplication of existing differentiated cells. Recent work on adult stem cells has highlighted their potential contribution to organ maintenance and repair. However, the extent to which stem cells actually participate in these processes in vivo is not clear. Here we introduce a method for genetic lineage tracing to determine the contribution of stem cells to a tissue of interest. We focus on pancreatic β-cells, whose postnatal origins remain controversial. Our analysis shows that pre-existing β-cells, rather than pluripotent stem cells, are the major source of new β-cells during adult life and after pancreatectomy in mice. These results suggest that terminally differentiated β-cells retain a significant proliferative capacity in vivo and cast doubt on the idea that adult stem cells have a significant role in β-cell replenishment.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02520 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:429:y:2004:i:6987:d:10.1038_nature02520

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature02520

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().