研究発表を行った学会；The 2004 Kumamoto University COE Symposium on Cell Fate Regulation
２００４年　６月　６日（熊本）
タイトル；Analysis of pancreatic progenitor cells differentiated from mouse ES cells
発表者；吉田　哲　氏
　　　（熊本大学　発生医学研究センター　幹細胞制御分野）
Abstract；
The studies on differentiating ES into certain cells have been actively taken place for the "regeneration medicine" since human ES cells were established in 1998. At the same time, ES cells are useful tools to analyze the mechanisms of development and differentiation in vitro. While cells ectodermal and mesodermal cells, such as neuron and blood, differentiated from ES cells extremely studied, our knowledge to derive the endodermal cells from ES cells were very limited. This is because of the lack of knowledge of the endodermal development. Pancreatic cells were focused in our laboratory for both the treatment of diabetic patients and the analysis of pancreatic development. We are trying to induce pancreatic progenitor cells and also endocrine cells, and we have established a system to derive Pdx1 positive cells from mouse ES cells.
The present study aimed to analyze the pancreatic progenitors from ES cells at a molecular level. First, we purified pancreatic progenitors from ES cells and then analyze the gene expression profile using Affymetrix Gene Chip.

CONCLUSIONS
・ pdx1-GFP-ES cell, in which GFP was expressed under the control of pancreatic progenitor marker gene pdx1 promotor, was established from pdx1-GFP transgenic mouse.
・ GFP expressing cells were induced from pdx1-GFP-ES cells and collected using FACS.
・ RT-PCR analysis showed a close correlation between the expression levels of GFP and pdx1 in the pancreatic progenitors derived from pdx1-GFP-ES cells.
・ The Gene Chip data suggested that GFP strongly positive cells are immature pancreatic progenitors which have characters of endodermal progenitor cells.

FUTURE PLAN
1. Our next goal is to characterize signals which will instruct this pancreatic progenitor cells to differentiate to an endocrine fate.
2. To focus on the genes that we identified to be enriched in the cells derived from ES cells are actually involved in normal pancreatic development.