BACKGROUND Simultaneous occurrence of exocrine and neuroendocrine tumors of the pancreas is very infrequent. We report a patient with an endocrine tumor in the pancreatic-duodenal area and extensive exocrine carcinoma involving the whole pancreas. CASE PRESENTATION A 69-year-old woman was hospitalized in May 2016 for epigastric pain and weight loss. Her past medical history revealed an undefi...

Mutations and deregulation of adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) and beta-catenin are implicated in specific cancers of the pancreas, but the role of Wnt pathway in normal pancreas development and homeostasis is unknown. This article reports a comprehensive investigation of the activity and the role of the Wnt pathway in pancreas organogenesis. We have used two reporter lines to monitor canonical...

The basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor, NEUROG3, is critical in causing endocrine commitment from a progenitor cell population in the developing pancreas. In human, NEUROG3 has been detected from 8 weeks post-conception (wpc). However, the profile of its production and when it ceases to be detected is unknown. In this study we have defined the profile of NEUROG3 detection in the develo...

The islets of Langerhans constitute the endocrine part of the pancreas and are responsible for maintenance of blood glucose homeostasis. They are deeply embedded in the exocrine pancreas, limiting their accessibility for functional studies. Understanding regulation of function and survival and assessing the clinical outcomes of individual treatment strategies for diabetes requires a monitoring ...

BACKGROUND Central pancreatectomy has a unique application for lesions in the neck of the pancreas. It preserves the distal pancreas and its endocrine functions. It also preserves the spleen. METHODS This is a retrospective review of 10 patients who underwent central pancreatectomy without pancreatico-enteric anastomosis between October 2005 and May 2009. The surgical indications, operative o...

The pancreas plays a critical role in the control of nutritional homeostasis. It consists of two major parts, the exocrine pancreas, which releases digestive enzymes; and the endocrine pancreas, which releases hormones such as insulin, glucagon, pancreatic polypeptide and somatostatin and maintains glucose homeostasis. Cells in the endocrine pancreas are organized in pancreatic clusters of cell...

To determine the origin of the ventral pancreas, a fate map of the ventral pancreas was constructed using DiI crystal or CM-DiI to mark regions of the early chick endoderm: this allowed correlations to be established between specific endoderm sites and the positions of their descendants. First, the region lateral to the 7- to 9-somite level, which has been reported to contribute to the ventral ...

Multiple cell types of the pancreas appear asynchronously during embryogenesis, which requires that pancreatic progenitor cell potential changes over time. Loss-of-function studies have shown that Notch signaling modulates the differentiation of these progenitors, but it remains unclear how and when the Notch pathway acts. We established a modular transgenic system to heritably activate mouse N...

Genome-encoded microRNAs (miRNAs) provide a posttranscriptional regulatory layer, which is important for pancreas development. Differentiation of endocrine cells is controlled by a network of pancreatic transcription factors including Ngn3 and NeuroD/Beta2. However, how specific miRNAs are intertwined into this transcriptional network is not well understood. Here, we characterize the regulation...

Exocrine and endocrine pancreatic function was studied in the rat after occlusion of the pancreatic ducts with acrylate or prolamine, respectively. After 5 months the effect of these procedures was a clear-cut exocrine insufficiency as evidenced by reduced enzyme activities in pancreatic tissue and in intestinal content, while the endocrine function was not impaired. The insulin secretory respo...