Department of Diabetes and Endocrinology, Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine, Kobe, Japan.
Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Cell Mol Life Sci. 2021 Mar;78(5):2069-2079. doi: 10.1007/s00018-020-03692-8. Epub 2020 Nov 18.
The pituitary plays a pivotal role in maintaining systemic homeostasis by secreting several hormones. During fetal development, the pituitary develops from the oral ectoderm in contact with the adjacent hypothalamus. This process is regulated by the fine-tuned expression of transcription and growth factors. Impairments of this process result in congenital pituitary hypoplasia leading to dysfunction of the pituitary. Although animal models such as knockout mice have helped to clarify these underlying mechanisms, the developmental processes of the human pituitary gland and the mechanisms of human pituitary disorders have not been fully understood. This is because, at least in part, of the lack of a human pituitary developmental model. Recently, methods for in vitro induction of the pituitary gland from human pluripotent stem cells were developed. These models can be utilized not only for regenerative medicine but also for human pituitary studies on developmental biology and for modeling of pituitary disorders, such as hypopituitarism and pituitary tumors. In this review, we provide an overview of recent progress in the applications of pluripotent stem cells for pituitary research and discuss further perspectives for pituitary studies.
垂体通过分泌多种激素在维持全身内环境稳定方面发挥着关键作用。在胎儿发育过程中，垂体由与相邻下丘脑接触的口腔外胚层发育而来。这一过程受转录和生长因子的精细表达调控。这一过程的障碍会导致先天性垂体发育不良，从而导致垂体功能障碍。尽管像 knockout 小鼠这样的动物模型有助于阐明这些潜在机制，但人类垂体的发育过程和人类垂体疾病的机制尚未完全了解。这至少部分是由于缺乏人类垂体发育模型。最近，已经开发出了从人类多能干细胞体外诱导垂体的方法。这些模型不仅可用于再生医学，还可用于研究垂体的发育生物学，以及模拟垂体功能减退症和垂体肿瘤等垂体疾病。在这篇综述中，我们概述了多能干细胞在垂体研究中的应用的最新进展，并讨论了进一步研究垂体的前景。
