Cell and Developmental Biology Program, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19111, USA. zaret@fccc.edu
Understanding how transcription factors control early pancreas development can yield insight into digestive diseases and guide protocols for therapeutic stem-cell differentiation. A new study, using a sensitive lineage-marking approach, shows that the transcription factor Ptf1a is critical to the specification of pancreatic endocrine, exocrine and duct cells in mice. This indicates an earlier and more pervasive influence of Ptf1a on organogenesis than was previously revealed by standard gene inactivation.
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