Fig. 5: Acinar-to-ductal transdifferentiation occurs after pancreatic duct ligation-induced injury.

a Schematic diagram illustrating the experimental strategy for Tam treatment, PDL-induced injury and analysis. b Whole-mount bright-field and fluorescent images showing zsGreen and tdT expression in the pancreas from Tnni3-Dre;CK19-CreER;IR1 mice after PDL-induced injury. c H&E staining of pancreatic sections from indicated mice. d, e Immunostaining for tdT, zsGreen and CK19 (d) or Amylase (e) on sections collected from the tail region of PDL pancreas. Yellow arrows, tdT⁺ duct cells. Yellow arrowheads, tdT⁺ acinar cells. f, g Immunostaining for tdT, zsGreen and CK19 (f) or Amylase (g) on sections collected from the head region of PDL pancreas. White arrowheads, zsGreen⁺ duct cells. Yellow arrowheads, tdT⁺ acinar cells. h Quantification of the percentage of duct cells expressing zsGreen or tdT and acinar cells expressing zsGreen or tdT in the tail and head regions of pancreas from Tnni3-Dre;CK19-CreER;IR1 mice after PDL-induced injury. Data are means ± SEM. n = 5. i Diagram illustrating that a subset of new duct cells in the injury region is derived from tdT⁺ acinar cells after PDL. Scale bars, yellow, 1 mm; white and black,100 μm. Each image is representative of 5 individual samples.