METHOD FOR DIFFERENTIATION OF PANCREATIC PROGENITOR CELLS FROM HUMAN EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS

摘要

A method for inducing the differentiation from human embryonic stem cells to pancreatic progenitor cells is provided to inhibit differentiation of human embryonic stem cells to undesired cells, and produce a large quantity of pancreatic beta cells from the pancreatic progenitor cells by increasing differentiation yield, so that the pancreatic progenitor cells are useful for treatment of diabetes. A method for inducing the differentiation from human embryonic stem cells to pancreatic progenitor cells comprises the steps of: treating the human embryonic stem cells with serum by culturing in a medium containing 15-25% of serum for 3-5 days to induce three germ layer embryoid bodies; treating the three germ layer embryoid bodies with 25-35 ng/ml of activin A and culturing them for 3-5 days to induce endoderm embryoid bodies; treating the endoderm embryoid bodies with 5-15 muM of retinoic acid and culturing them for 1-3 days to induce pancreatic endoderm-increased embryoid bodies; and attaching the pancreatic endoderm-increased embryoid bodies to a culture dish and culturing them in serum free medium containing ITS(a 4-6 mg/l of insulin, a 40-60 mg/l of transferrin and a 0.4-0.6 mg/l of selenite) and 3-7 mug/ml of fibronectin for 10-15 days.