Abstract
Human pancreatic myofibroblats are useful for the analysis of cellular responses in the pancreas. Two types (human and rat) of pancreatic myofibroblasts have been reported. When compared with rat myofibroblasts, human pancreatic myofibroblasts have several beneficial points: e.g. (1) behavior of human cells may reflect in vivo human responses more precisely, (2) more experimental tools, such as antibodies, are available for human than rat, and (3) due to the complete analysis of human genes, molecular approaches are more easily applicable to human cells than rat cells. In this study, we analyzed IL-1β induced genes in human pancreatic myofibroblasts by means of DNA microarray. IL-1β induced many genes associated with inflammatory and immune responses, such as chemokines and interleukins. Among them, we are now investigating IL-32 expression in these cells. Since IL-32 has been reported as a TNF-α-inducing factor, IL-32 expression in human pancreatic myofibroblasts suggests that IL-32 may be involved in the pathophysiology of acute and chronic pancreatitis.
