ISOLATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF A CELL-LINE FROM THE EPITHELIAL-CELLS OF THE HUMAN FETAL PANCREAS

Pancreatic cell lines are useful for basic studies of pancreatic biolo gy and for possible application to cell transplantation therapies for diabetes. A retroviral vector expressing simian virus 40 (SV40) T anti gen and H-ras(val12) was used to infect a monolayer culture of epithel ial cells from an 18-wk human fetal pancreas, Infected cells gave rise to a clonal epithelial cell line, designated TRM-1. This cell line ex presses epithelial markers as well as glut2 and small amounts of insul in and glucagon, TRM-1 is the first cell line to be generated from the human fetal pancreas and also the first cell line derived directly fr om the fetal pancreas of any species. The approach that we have used t o develop TRM-1 should be applicable to isolating cell lines from othe r stages of human pancreatic development. Copyright (C) 1997 Elsevier Science, Inc.