An Appraisal of Intermediate Filament Expression in Adult and Developing Pancreas: Vimentin Is Expressed in Alpha Cells of Rat and Mouse Embryos

Alessandro Di Bella ¹, Marì Regoli ¹, Claudio Nicoletti ¹, Leonardo Ermini ¹, Luciano Fonzi ¹ and Eugenio Bertelli ^1*

¹ Department of Pharmacology, Giorgio Segre, Section of Anatomy (AD.MR,LF,EB) and Department of Evolutionary Biology (LE), University of Siena, Siena, Italy, and Laboratory of Gut Immunology, Institute of Food Research, Norwich, United Kingdom (CN)

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bertelli5{at}unisi.it.

Submitted on September 22, 2008
Accepted on 27 January 2009

	Abstract

Intermediate filaments are frequently used in studies of developmental biology as markers of cell differentiation. In order to assess if they can be useful to identify differentiating pancreatic endocrine cells, we have examined the pattern of expression of nestin, cytokeratin 20 and vimentin on acetone-fixed cryosections of rat adult and developing pancreas. We also studied vimentin expression in mouse embryonic pancreas at E19. Cytokeratin 20 was found in all pancreatic epithelial cell lineages during the entire development of the rat gland as well as in the adult animals. Under our experimental conditions, therefore, cytokeratin 20 is not an exclusive marker of rat duct cells. Nestin was detected exclusively in stromal cells either in the adult or developing rat pancreas. Vimentin was observed within cells located in the primitive ducts of rat pancreas starting from E12.5. Their number rapidly increased reaching its highest level in newborn animals. Vimentin was also spotted in alpha cells starting from E12.5 but disappeared soon after birth, likely identifying immature or recently differentiated alpha cells. In addition, vimentin was observed in duct and alpha cells of mouse developing pancreas showing that its expression in such cells is not an event restricted to the rat. This manuscript contains online supplemental material at http://www.jhc.org. Please visit this article online to view these materials.

Key Words: pancreas, pancreatic ducts, islets of Langerhans, alpha cells, cytoskeleton, cytokeratin 20, vimentin, nestin, rat, mouse

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