The expression of genes positively regulating the activity of the SHH pathways is significantly upregulated in the pancreatic epithelium of Pdx1-Cre;αE-catenin-KO pancreas, both during development at E15.5 (A) and at birth day P0 (B).
(A and B) Data are shown as mean ± SEM from n = 4 independent experiments; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.001.
(C–M) Organ cultures of P0 pancreata from WT (C–E) and Pdx1-Cre;αE-catenin-KO mice (F–H) under control conditions. Addition of cyclopamine to organ cultures from Pdx1-Cre;αE-catenin-KO pancreata (I–K) rescued endocrine cell differentiation. Cyclopamine treatment normalizes the overall endocrine cell area (L) and reduces the frequency of proliferating Sox9+ cells to levels close to those measured in WT pancreata (M). qPCR data presented in (A) and (B) are from 4 independent experiments. Morphometric analysis on organ cultures (C–M) was performed on samples from n = 8 independent experiments. Reference bar, 50 µm.