The mice not subjected to STZ maintained normal glucose levels throughout the experiments. find more The sham controls given STZ became hyperglycemic and within 2 weeks had glucose levels at > 750 mg/dL. These controls maintained high

levels of hyperglycemia for the duration of the experiments and some of them died at around 100 days. By contrast, the glucose levels in STZ-treated mice and transplanted with preinduced neoislet clusters remained high (>750 mg/dL) for ≈2 months and then declined steadily. By day 102 the glucose levels were less than half that of the controls. All of these mice survived, and there was no tumor formation in any of them. Significant levels of human C-peptide were detected at postoperative days 68 and 91 in the serum of hosts transplanted but not control or sham control mice (P < 0.001). The selleck chemicals human C-peptide levels in vivo were regulatable by glucose challenge (Fig. 8). Peribiliary glands are stem cell niches of the biliary tree and compare with and are related to intrahepatic stem cell niches in ductal plates of fetal and neonatal livers and canals of Hering in pediatric and adult livers.4, 5, 19, 20 They start at the level of intrahepatic septal bile ducts, implicating these as additional intrahepatic stem cell niches, corroborating the findings of Theise et al.19 These multipotent stem cells, located in peribiliary glands

deep within the bile duct walls, express markers for endodermal stem cells and can migrate to appropriate sites and differentiate into various adult cells, contributing to the renewal/repair of biliary epithelium and also of liver and pancreas. Given that cells and the differentiation phenomena are found in biliary tree tissue from fetal, pediatric, adult, and geriatric donors, facets of organogenesis of liver, biliary

tree, and pancreas appear to be ongoing throughout life. The gallbladder does not contain peribiliary glands, but it does have related Phosphoprotein phosphatase cells that possibly represent facultative progenitors. This proposal parallels the intestinal model in which proliferation of stem cells within Lieberkuhn’s crypts is followed by cell migration and differentiation along the crypt-villus axis and is critical for development of the intestinal architecture.21 SOX17 is important for endodermal progenitors switching between biliary tree and pancreas,15 is associated with hedgehog proteins known also as important for liver versus pancreas differentiation, and is associated with primary cilia.22 We assume this is relevant to the SOX17 evident in the biliary tree stem/progenitors, but its relevance is not yet fully understood. Cultures of the biliary tree stem/progenitors were obtained readily in KM, a serum-free, defined medium developed for rodent hepatoblasts and subsequently found effective for hepatic stem cells.