COMMENTARY

Chronic pancreatitis

Are we studying the correct state of the stellate cell to elucidate mechanisms of chronic pancreatitis?

S J Pandol

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr S Pandol
UCLA Department of Medicine, West Los Angeles VAGLAHS, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Building 258, Room 340, Los Angeles, CA 90073, USA; stephen.pandol@med.va.gov

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Important insights into the states of pancreatic stellate cells and their relation to the disease conditions of the pancreas

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Keywords: pancreas; myofibroblast; p21Cip1/WAF1; fibrosis; explant culture

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The processes of chronic pancreatitis include chronic inflammation and fibrosis with loss of parenchymal cells of the exocrine and endocrine pancreas. These processes lead to irreversible and debilitating exocrine and endocrine insufficiency and a severe chronic pain syndrome. Although elucidation of the mechanisms underlying chronic pancreatitis are incomplete, considerable progress has been made in our understanding of the fibrosis process as a result of identification and characterisation of pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) starting in 1997.^1–3 Studies with these cells suggest that they play a key role in chronic pancreatitis in a manner analogous to hepatic stellate cells and hepatic fibrosis^4,5

In common with liver fibrosis and hepatic stellate cells there is increasing evidence demonstrating a central role for PSCs in pancreatic fibrosis and chronic pancreatitis. In the normal pancreas, quiescent PSCs are identified using antibodies to desmin, a cytoskeletal protein and specific PSC marker.¹ They are present in . . . [Full text of this article]

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Translocation of p21^Cip1/WAF1 from the nucleus to the cytoplasm correlates with pancreatic myofibroblast to fibroblast cell conversion

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