The cells of origin of pancreatic
gastrinomas remain an enigma, since no
gastrin-expressing cells are found in the normal adult pancreas. It was proposed that the cellular origin of pancreatic
gastrinomas may come from either the pancreatic cells themselves or
gastrin-expressing cells which have migrated from the duodenum. In the current study, we further characterized previously described transient pancreatic
gastrin-expressing cells using cell lineage tracing in a pan-pancreatic progenitor and a pancreatic endocrine progenitor model. We provide evidence showing that pancreatic
gastrin-expressing cells, found from embryonic day 12.5 until postnatal day 7, are derived from pancreatic Ptf1a(+) and neurogenin 3-expressing (Ngn3(+)) progenitors. Importantly, the majority of them coexpress
glucagon, with 4% coexpressing
insulin, indicating that they are a temporary subpopulation of both alpha and beta cells. Interestingly, Men1 disruption in both Ngn3 progenitors and beta and alpha cells resulted in the development of pancreatic
gastrin-expressing
tumors, suggesting that the latter developed from islet cells. Finally, we detected
gastrin expression using three human cohorts with pancreatic endocrine
tumors (
pNETs) that have not been diagnosed as
gastrinomas (in 9/34
pNETs from 6/14 patients with
multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1, in 5/35 sporadic nonfunctioning
pNETs, and in 2/20 sporadic
insulinomas), consistent with observations made in mouse models. Our work provides insight into the histogenesis of pancreatic
gastrin-expressing
tumors.