[Isolation, culture and biological character studies on human fetal pancreatic nestin positive cells].

Pancreatic nestin positive cells are multipotential stem cells which may play an important role in the development of pancreas. Here we isolated nestin positive cells from human fetal pancreases and then examined its biological characters in vitro. The results showed that: (1) Nestin positive cells expressed high level transcript of ABCG2/BCRP1 which was the molecular determination of stem cells, and they differed from pancreatic ductal epithelium cells both in morphology and in growth behavior. (2) Upon confluence, these cells self assemble to form islet like cell clusters (ICCs). (3) During differentiation, nestin positive cells in ICCs expressed markers of different cell lineages which meant that they were multipotential, and they could generate insulin-producing cells after inducement.