BioProject

Inflammation, acinar cell destruction, and ductal cell hyperplasia drive pancreatic remodeling in newborns with cystic fibrosis (CF) lacking a functional CFTR channel. More...

Inflammation, acinar cell destruction, and ductal cell hyperplasia drive pancreatic remodeling in newborns with cystic fibrosis (CF) lacking a functional CFTR channel. In neonatal CF ferrets, these changes are associated with a transient phase of glucose intolerance that involves islet destruction and subsequent regeneration near hyperplastic ducts. Little is known about the phenotypic changes in CF ductal epithelium and its potential impact on islet function. Using bulk RNA-seq, scRNA-seq, and ATAC-seq on CF ferret models, we demonstrate that ductal CFTR protein constrains PDX1 expression by maintaining PTEN and GSK3b activation. In the absence of CFTR protein, centroacinar cells (or terminal ductal cells) adopted a bi-potent progenitor-like state associated with enhanced WNT/b-Catenin, TGFb and AKT signaling. Notably, using in vitro and in vivo hypomorphic models of mutant CFTR expression, we show that the level of CFTR protein, not its channel function, regulates PDX1 expression. Thus, this study has discovered a cell-autonomous CFTR-dependent mechanism by which CFTR mutations that produced little to no protein could impact pancreatic exocrine/endocrine remodeling in people with CF. Overall design: Bulk ATAC-seq on differentiated WT and CF ferret PDE cultures grown at ALI Less...