1245-P: Characteristic Distribution of GRP78 in Islets and Intraislet Ductal Cells of Diabetic C414A-CRY1 Transgenic Mice

Abstract

Our preceding studies demonstrated that cysteine414 (zinc-binding site of mCRY1) - alanine mutant mCRY1 transgenic mice (TG mice) exhibit diabetes characterized by the reduction of β-cell proliferation caused by senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP)-like characters of β-cells. Not only pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasias (PanINs) with pancreatic duct glands (PDGs) but also intra-islet ducts emerged age-dependently in TG mice (Okano S. et al., 2019). Reportedly GRP78 (also called BiP) is highly expressed in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), and in lesions of acinar-to-ductal metaplasia (ADM) which is known as precursors of PanIN. As for the islet, GRP78 has been intensively studied with regard to the unfolded protein response (UPR) in the β cells. However, the details of in vivo distribution of GRP78, particularly in endocrine cells outside β cells, are still remain elusive. In this study, we conducted staining experiments for GRP78 in the pancreatic sections of well-matured mice to explore the relation between endocrine cells and intra-islet ducts. The results showed that the expression of GRP78 was higher in PanINs and PDGs than in normal ductal cells in TG mice, suggesting that GRP78 plays important roles in the maintenance of the atypical ductal lesions. In both wild-type and TG mice, GRP78 was observed in the whole islet. The expression of GRP78 was higher in β cells than in alpha and delta cells in both mice. Also, GRP78 was highly expressed in primary intra-islet ducts. Some of the GRP78 high-expressing primary intra-islet ductal cells were co-expressed with chromogranin A, which is known as an endocrine marker. Taken together, our results suggest that the direct trans-differentiation of endocrine cells (possibly β cells) to ductal cells is involved in the generation of the intra-islet ductal cells. Disclosure S. Okano: None. A. Yasui: None. S. Kanno: None. K. Satoh: None. M. Igarashi: None. O. Nakajima: None. Funding Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (19K07498); Tohoku University