Methods for amplifying and differentiating pancreatic cells, and application thereof

Abstract

An amplifying method of pancreatic cells is provided. The amplifying method includes performing digestion, resuspension, discontinuous density gradient centrifugation treatment and amplifying treatment sequentially. The mammalian pancreatic duct is used as the source of pancreatic precursor-like cells in the amplifying method, and islet cells and acinar cells in the cell clusters obtained by the discontinuous density gradient centrifugation treatment are removed. It is beneficial to improve the yield of the pancreatic precursor-like cells availably, and avoid the ethical restrictions and possible carcinogenic risks caused by using the embryonic stem cells. The amplifying medium used comprises a reprogramming substance composed of several small molecule compounds. It can avoid the risks of non-specific and off-target deletion that are easily caused by the use of the gene-editing methods to change the gene sequence. Also provided is a differentiation method and an application of the pancreatic precursor-like cells obtained by the amplifying method.