Evidence for a common cell of origin for primitive epithelial cells isolated from rat liver and pancreas

The appearance of differentiated hepatocytes in the adult rat pancreas as well as pancreatic-type tissue in the adult rat liver can be experimentally induced (Reddy et al.: J. Cell Biol., 98:2082-2090, 1984; Rao et al., J. Histochem. Cytochem., 34:197-201, 1986). These observations suggest a lineage relationship between cell compartments present in rat liver and pancreas. The present data demonstrate that epithelial cell lines with almost identical phenotypes can be established from adult rat liver and pancreas. The established cell lines showed similar morphologies as established by light- and electron-microscopic studies. The cell lines showed a unique expression pattern of intermediate filament proteins. Vimentin, actin, and beta-tubulin were present in all cell lines. In addition, simple epithelial type II cytokeratins 7 and 8 were found to be coexpressed with the type I cytokeratin 14 in several of the cell lines. Neither the type I cytokeratins 18 and 19, which are the normal partners for cytokeratins 8 and 7 in filament formation, nor the type II cytokeratin 5 could be detected despite the fact that filaments were formed by both cytokeratins 8 and 14. This suggests that cytokeratin 14 acts as an indiscriminate type I cytokeratin in filament formation in the established cell lines. The cell lines expressed the same sets of LDH and aldolase isoenzymes and identical sets of glutathione transferase subunits. In addition, the epithelial cell lines from liver and pancreas were equally sensitive to the growth-inhibitory effects of TGF-beta 1. No expression of tissue- or cell-specific proteins such as alpha-fetoprotein, albumin, amylase, elastase, or gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase were detected. The almost identical phenotypes of the hepatic and pancreatic cell lines suggest that they may be derived from a common primitive epithelial cell type present in both rat liver and pancreas. In contrast to parenchymal cells, these cells have an extended capacity for proliferation in vitro and may represent a progeny from a "precursor" or "stem" cell compartment in vivo.