Abstract
WBN/Kob rat serve as a model of spontaneous chronic pancreatitis that presents with impaired internal and external pancreatic secretion in males only, and causes fibrosis and inflammatory cells infiltration consisting mainly of monocytes in the pancreas starting at age 12 weeks. In this study, a comprehensive genetic analysis was conducted using an Oligo Microarray for the purpose of determining the mechanism of pancreatitis. The expression of the secretory stress proteins of Reg1, Reg3a, and Pap was thought to be involved in the onset of chronic pancreatitis in male WNB/Kob rats. The involvement of PRSS1was suggested with respect to the onset of human chronic pancreatitis. Since Prss1 was also highly expressed in the study rats, studies including SNP analysis are considered to be useful in the future. The activation of pancreatic stellate cells has attracted attention in fibrosis associated with chronic pancreatitis. Pancreatic stellate cells have been reported to be stained by nestin during pancreas damage induced by pancreatic duct ligation. Increases in expression of Nes starting at 12 weeks observed in the study rats as well is considered to constitute an interesting finding. Arg2 has been reported to be involved in NO production. Therefore, it is an interesting finding expression of Arg2 increased at 8 weeks in the male WBN/Kob rats. Pancreatic fibrosis tends to cause replacement of fatty tissue over time in male WBN/Kob rats. Since adipsin is involved in the differentiation into adipocytes, the increased expression of Adn in these rats was considered to be an interesting finding.
