CONTEXT Acinar cell carcinoma of the pancreas is a rare malignancy that may have acinar and endocrine differentiation. Clinical practice guidelines exist for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. However, treatment protocols for acinar cell carcinoma of the pancreas have not been standardized. CASE REPORT We describe a case of a 44-year-old woman presenting with low grade fever and mid-abdominal ...

Pancreatic morphology and amylase release from isolated pancreatic acini in response to caerulein was studied in the course of an experimental bile induced acute pancreatitis without acinar necrosis. The inflammation was induced by retrograde microinfusion of 25 microliters bile into the rat bile pancreatic duct. A dissociation between functional and structural findings was seen. One hour after...

Heat shock protein 27 (Hsp27) has been suggested to participate in the cell proliferation and differentiation during tissue development. In fact, we have demonstrated the transient occurrence of Hsp27 during the differentiation of salivary gland acinar cells in postnatal rats. The purpose of the present study is to explore the potential role of Hsp27 in the proliferation and differentiation of ...

PURPOSE Small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the prostate is likely to become increasingly common with recent advances in pharmacologic androgen suppression. Thus, developing molecular markers of small cell differentiation in prostate cancer will be important to guide the diagnosis and therapy of this aggressive tumor. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We examined the status of RB1, TP53, and PTEN in pro...

A characteristic of acute pancreatitis is the premature activation and retention of enzymes within the pancreatic acinar cell. Because ligands linked to cAMP production may prevent some forms of pancreatitis, we evaluated the effects of increased intracellular cAMP in the rat pancreatic acinar cell. Specifically, this study examined the effects of the cholinergic agonist carbachol and agents th...

BACKGROUND & AIMS The genetic specification of the compartmentalized pancreatic acinar/centroacinar unit is poorly understood. Growth factor independence-1 (Gfi1) is a zinc finger transcriptional repressor that regulates hematopoietic stem cell maintenance, pre-T-cell differentiation, formation of granulocytes, inner ear hair cells, and the development of secretory cell types in the intestine. ...

A pancreatic acinar cell-mediated mutagenicity assay was developed as an in vitro model system to study the metabolism of N-nitrosobis(2-oxopropyl)amine (BOP) and N-nitroso(2-hydroxypropyl)(2-oxopropyl)amino (HPOP) into forms mutagenic for Chinese hamster V79 cells. Mutations at the hypoxanthine:guanine phosphoribosyltransferase locus and the Na/K ATPase locus were scored by resistance to 6-thi...

BACKGROUND & AIMS Progression of diseases of the exocrine pancreas, which include pancreatitis and cancer, is associated with increased levels of cell stress. Pancreatic acinar cells are involved in development of these diseases and, because of their high level of protein output, they require an efficient, unfolded protein response (UPR) that mediates recovery from endoplasmic reticulum (ER) st...