Morphological characteristics and identification of islet-like cells derived from rat adipose-derived stem cells cocultured with pancreas adult stem cells

Diabetes is a significant public health problem that can be treated with insulin therapy; however, therapies designed to cure diabetes are limited. The goal of the current study was to assess the potential for curative treatment of diabetes using adipose‐derived stem cells (ADSCs). To achieve this goal, the differentiation of rat ADSCs into pancreatic islet‐like cells induced by coculture with pancreatic adult stem cells (PASCs) was characterized. Differentiation of ADSCs into islet‐like cells induced by coculturing was determined morphologically, as well as by the assessment of islet cell markers using dithizone staining, immunohistochemistry, RT‐PCR, qPCR, and western blotting. The results showed that ADSCs formed islet‐like round cell masses after coculture with PASCs. These differentiated cells were shown to be positive for islet cell markers, including dithizone incorporation; PDX1, CK19 and Nestin by immunohistochemistry, and insulin, PDX1 and glucagon expression by RT‐PCR. Differentiated ADSCs induced by coculturing also expressed insulin at the mRNA and protein level, with the level of insulin mRNA expression in cocultured ADSCs being 0.05 times greater than that of PASCs (P