Preprotachykinin-A gene expression occurs transiently in the developing rat endocrine pancreas and can be regulated in RINm5F cells.

We have reported previously that the rat insulinoma cell lines, RINm5F and RINr1046-38, express the preprotachykinin(PPT)-A gene, which encodes the tachykinin peptides, substance P and neurokinin A. Because endocrine cells of the adult rat pancreas do not appear to express PPT-A, we investigated whether the gene is expressed by rat pancreatic endocrine cells during development. We used immunohistochemistry, employing different substance P and neurokinin A antibodies, to show that many endocrine cells of the fetal and neonatal rat pancreas synthesise these products of PPT-A gene expression. Colabeling experiments revealed that a significant number of both insulin-containing and non-insulin-containing cells express tachykinins. After postnatal day 20, the number of tachykinin-immunoreactive pancreatic islet cells declines and, as already reported, none were detected in the adult rat pancreas. The transient expression of PPT-A by the developing endocrine pancreas is a novel finding. Substance P and neurokinin A are known to have trophic actions and may serve as growth factors during pancreatic islet development. PPT-A gene expression by RINm5F and RINr1046-38 cells is further evidence that these cells resemble developing pancreatic endocrine cells. They are potentially valuable as unique models for studying the regulation of tachykinin biosynthesis. We provide evidence in this study, using quantitative PPT-A messenger RNA analysis, that PPT-A expression in RINm5F cells may be up-regulated by activation of protein kinase C, down-regulated by activation of glucocorticoid receptors, and is not significantly affected by changes in intracellular cAMP levels.