Though embryonic pancreas progenitors are well characterised, the existence of stem/progenitor cells in the postnatal mammalian pancreas has been long debated, mainly due to contradicting results on regeneration after injury or disease in mice. Despite these controversies, sequencing advancements combined with lineage tracing and organoid technologies indicate that homeostatic and trigger-induced regenerative responses in mice could occur. The presence of putative progenitor cells in the adult pancreas has been proposed during homeostasis and upon different stress challenges such as inflammation, tissue damage and oncogenic stress. More recently, single cell transcriptomics has revealed a remarkable heterogeneity in all pancreas cell types, with some cells showing the signature of potential progenitors. In this review we provide an overview on embryonic and putative adult pancreas progenitors in homeostasis and disease, with special emphasis on in vitro culture systems and scRNA-seq technology as tools to address the progenitor nature of different pancreatic cells.

尽管胚胎胰腺祖细胞已得到很好的表征，但出生后哺乳动物胰腺中干细胞/祖细胞的存在长期以来一直存在争议，这主要是由于小鼠受伤或患病后再生的结果相互矛盾。尽管存在这些争议，但测序进展与谱系追踪和类器官技术相结合表明，小鼠体内可能会发生稳态和触发诱导的再生反应。已经提出，在体内平衡期间以及在不同的应激挑战（例如炎症、组织损伤和致癌应激）下，成人胰腺中存在推定的祖细胞。最近，单细胞转录组学揭示了所有胰腺细胞类型的显着异质性，其中一些细胞显示出潜在祖细胞的特征。在这篇综述中，我们概述了胚胎和假定的成年胰腺祖细胞在稳态和疾病中的作用，特别强调体外培养系统和 scRNA-seq 技术作为解决不同胰腺细胞祖细胞性质的工具。