COMMENTARY

Pancreatic stellate cells

Pancreatic stellate cells: new kids^* become mature

M Pinzani

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr M Pinzani
Dipartimento di Medicina Interna, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Viale GB Morgagni, 85, 50134 Firenze, Italy; m.pinzani@dmi.unifi.it

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Vitamin A and its metabolites can reverse activation of culture activated pancreatic stellate cells and prevent ethanol induced pancreatic stellate cell activation

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Keywords: pancreatic stellate cells; vitamin A; mitogen activated protein kinases; pancreatic fibrosis; pancreatic cancer

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

It is with great pleasure that I present to the readers of Gut this commentary accompanying the paper by McCarroll and colleagues¹ published in this issue of the journal (see page 79). The field of pancreatic stellate cell (PSC) research has grown exponentially in the past five years and major advancements have been made since their first identification as a pathophysiological entity at the end of the 1990s.^2,3 In those years, research on hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and on their role in liver fibrogenesis had reached an elevated degree of sophistication. Therefore, the possibility of isolating stellate cells from rodent or human pancreas led to an almost automatic introduction of PSCs into a new research area: the cellular and molecular mechanisms of pancreatic fibrogenesis.

Fibrosis in the pancreas is consequent to necrosis/apoptosis, inflammation, or duct obstruction. The initial event that induces fibrogenesis in the pancreas . . . [Full text of this article]

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Relevant Article

Vitamin A inhibits pancreatic stellate cell activation: implications for treatment of pancreatic fibrosis

J A McCarroll, P A Phillips, N Santucci, R C Pirola, J S Wilson, and M V Apte
Gut 2006 55: 79-89. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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