Abstract
Members of the TGF-beta superfamily of cytokines have been implicated in pancreatic cancer, pancreatitis and in regulation and differentiation of pancreatic endocrine and exocrine cells. Different TGF-beta members signal through phosphorylation of different signal transduction proteins, which eventually form oligomers with SMAD 4 and translocate to the nucleus. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction showed that SMADs 1, 2 and 4 are expressed in pancreatic islets. Immunostaining revealed that SMAD 1 and 4 predominantly were expressed by islet insulin and glucagon cells. Since SMAD 1 is known to transduce signals from receptors binding bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) these results indicate a previously unknown role of BMP-like ligands in islet function.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Histochemistry and Cell Biology |
| Volume | 116 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Pages (from-to) | 263-7 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| ISSN | 0948-6143 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2001 |
Keywords
- Animals
- Animals, Newborn
- DNA-Binding Proteins
- Fluorescein-5-isothiocyanate
- Fluorescent Antibody Technique
- Gene Expression
- Immunohistochemistry
- Pancreas
- RNA, Messenger
- Rats
- Rats, Wistar
- Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
- Signal Transduction
- Smad Proteins
- Smad1 Protein
- Smad2 Protein
- Smad4 Protein
- Trans-Activators
