The pancreatic islets of Langerhans produce several peptide hormones, predo
minantly the metabolically active hormones insulin and glucagon, which are
critical for maintaining normal fuel homeostasis. Some evidence exists that
pancreatic endocrine cells turn over at a slow rate and can regenerate in
certain conditions. This could be due to the presence of pluripotent cells
residing in the pancreas. Recently the intermediate filament protein nestin
has been identified to be a marker for a multipotent stem cell in the cent
ral nervous system. Given the similarity between the pancreatic islets and
neuronal cells, we hypothesized that stem cells expressing nestin might be
present in the pancreas. sere we present evidence that a subset of cells in
the pancreatic islets express the stem cell marker nestin. These cells mig
ht serve as precursors of differentiated pancreatic endocrine cells. (C) 20
00 Academic Press.