2010 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Mechanism of pancreatic beta cell expansion by bone marrow transplantation

Research Project

Project/Area Number	20591073
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Metabolomics
Research Institution	Juntendo University
Principal Investigator	WATADA Hirotaka Juntendo University, 医学部, 教授 (60343480)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	YOSHIO Fujitani 順天堂大学, 医学研究科, 准教授 (30433783)
Project Period (FY)	2008 – 2010
Keywords	膵β細胞 / 糖尿病 / 骨髄移植 / VEGF-A / 血管内皮
Research Abstract	Bone marrow transplantation increases beta cell mass, however its underlying mechanism has not been elucidated yet. In this study, we investigated its mechanism. Bone marrow transplantation experiments under several conditions revealed that systemic irradiation without injection of bone marrow cells can increase beta cell mass. On the other hand, irradiation only to bone marrow or only to pancreas cannot increase beta cell mass. In addition, using beta cell specific VEGF-A knock out mice, we found that VEGF-A expression in beta cells are essential for the increase in beta cell mass by bone marrow transplantation. Accordingly, systemic irradiation is essential and sufficient for bone marrow transplantation induced increase in beta cell mass and VEGF-A in beta cells are also essential for this phenomenon.