Pancreas Development in Zebrafish

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the pancreas development in zebrafish. The vertebrate pancreas has two major tasks: exocrine contributions to food digestion and endocrine control of metabolic homeostasis. These tasks are exerted through two distinct tissue components. The exocrine component is composed of acinar glands that release digestive enzymes into the intestine, whereas the endocrine component is composed of four distinct cell types that secrete hormones into the bloodstream to control glucose homeostasis and digestive functions. This chapter explains three major developmental mechanisms that contribute to the formation of the pancreas organ primordium and its differentiation into a fully functional organ. The first is the pattern formation of the endoderm that defines the position of the pancreatic primordium within the endodermal germ layer. The second mechanism involves the control of cell differentiation from pluripotent endodermal precursor cells through hypothetic organ specific precursors to the specialized pancreatic cell types. The third and least well-understood mechanism is morphogenesis of the pancreas that involves extensive cellular rearrangements as well as movements of whole organ parts, and results in the mature asymmetric location of the pancreas in the abdomen and the typical shape, and cellular organization of the pancreas.