Neural crest stem cells from hair follicles and boundary cap have different effects on pancreatic islets in vitro

Abstract

Purpose: Neural crest stem cells derived from the boundary cap (bNCSCs), markedly promote survival, proliferation and function of insulin producing β-cells in vitro and in vivo after coculture/transplantation with pancreatic islets [1, 2]. Recently, we have shown that beneficial effects on β-cells require cadherin contacts between bNCSCs and β-cells [3, 4]. Here we investigated whether hair follicle (HF) NCSCs, a potential source for human allogeneic transplantation, exert similar positive effects on β-cells. Materials and Methods: We established cocultures of HF-NCSCs or bNCSCs from mice expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein together with pancreatic islets from DxRed expressing mice or NMRI mice and compared their migration towards islet cells and effect on proliferation of β-cells as well as intracellular relations between NCSCs and islets using qRT-PCR analysis and immunohistochemistry. Results: Whereas both types of NCSCs migrated extensively in the presence of islets, only bNCSCs demonstrated directed migration toward islets, induced β-cell proliferation and increased the presence of cadherin at the junctions between bNCSCs and β-cells. Even in direct contact between β-cells and HF-NCSCs, no cadherin expression was detected. Conclusions: These observations indicate that HF-NCSCs do not confer the same positive effect on β-cells as demonstrated for bNCSCs. Furthermore, these data suggest that induction of cadherin expression by HF-NCSCs may be useful for their ability to support β-cells in coculture and after transplantation.

KEYWORDS:

• Diabetes
• migration
• cell culture
• coculture
• intercellular contacts

Acknowledgments

We thank Ninnie Abrahamsson for help with bNCSC cultures.

Declaration of Interest

No conflict of interest declared. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper. This work was supported by Swedish Research Council, proj no. 20716, Stiftelsen Olle Engkvist Byggmastare, Signhild Engkvist's Stiftelse and the Swedish Institute's Visby program Dnr 00613/2011.