Miniature pancreas grown using new 3D method

Researchers have successfully developed an innovative 3D method to grow miniature pancreas from progenitor cells.
The method offers huge long term potential in producing miniature human pancreas from human stem cells. These human miniature organs would be valuable as models to test new drugs faster and effectively - and without the use of animal models.
Scientists from the University of Copenhagen have developed a three-dimensional culture method which enables the efficient expansion of pancreatic cells. It allows the cell material from mice to grow vividly in picturesque tree-like structures.
"The new method allows the cell material to take a three-dimensional shape enabling them to multiply more freely," said Anne Grapin-Botton at the Danish Stem Cell Centre.

The cells do not thrive and develop if they are alone, and a minimum of four pancreatic cells close together is required for subsequent organoid development.
"We found that the cells of the pancreas develop better in a gel in three-dimensions than when they are attached and flattened at the bottom of a culture plate," said Grapin-Botton.

"Under optimal conditions, the initial clusters of a few cells have proliferated into 40,000 cells within a week. After growing a lot, they transform into cells that make either digestive enzymes or hormones like insulin and they self-organise into branched pancreatic organoids that are amazingly similar to the pancreas," she added.

Researchers plan to use this model to help fight against diabetes. An effective cellular therapy for diabetes is dependent on the production of sufficient quantities of functional beta-cells.
Recent studies have enabled the production of pancreatic precursors but efforts to expand these cells and differentiate them into insulin-producing beta-cells have proved a challenge.
"We think this is an important step towards the production of cells for diabetes therapy, both to produce mini-organs for drug testing and insulin-producing cells as spare parts," Grapin-Botton said.
"We show that the pancreatic cells care not only about how you feed them but need to be grown in the right physical environment. We are now trying to adapt this method to human stem cells," she said.

The research is published in the scientific journal Development.