METHOD FOR IN VITRO FORMATION OF PANCREAS OF VERTEBRATE ANIMAL

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method in which an in vitro derived pancreas is derived from a gastrula other than a predetermined area for pancreas in a high yield, providing knowledge related to a differentiation and formation mechanism of pancreas and capable of evaluating whether the pancreas obtained in vitro can actually act in vivo when transplantation and providing knowledge on a diagnosis and a therapy for pancreatic diseases of higher animals. SOLUTION: The morphological and functional pancreas is formed in vitro in a high yield by cutting out an unplanned germ layer area in an undifferentiated cell of a late blastula forming an irregular epidermis without forming pancreas when cultured in vitro from the late blastula of Xenopus laevis, treating the germ layer area with activin, treating with retinoic acid after 3-5 h and then carrying out a static culture of the explants in Steinberg's solution containing bovine serum albumin(BSA) to transmute a prospective fate thereof into the pancreas.