Elucidation of local, niche environment that determines pancreatic islet regeneration.

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25670116
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Environmental physiology(including physical medicine and nutritional physiology)
• Research Institution: Chiba University
• Principal Investigator: MIKI Takashi 千葉大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 教授 (50302568)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 膵島 / 再生 / 前駆細胞 / 糖尿病

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Acceleration of islet regeneration can be a radical therapy for diabetes mellitus. However, the cells involved in the regeneration have not been characterized and its regulatory mechanism remains unclarified. By analyzing the precise regeneration processes in our mouse model, we found that β-cell proliferation is regulated by the changes in β-cell mass, that the mass is maintained by the frequent cell division of the highly proliferative cells, and that several genes involved in the maintenance of stem/progenitor niche environment or in β-cell development are highly expressed during regeneration.

Free Research Field

栄養生理学