Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

To identify the initial targets of Ptf1a in the early endoderm, we will take advantage of the fact that overexpression of Ptf1a leads to the development of ectopic pancreatic tissue as we previously showed. Overexpression of Ptf1a mRNA in the anterior endoderm results in the entire region being converted into pancreas - both endocrine and exocrine pancreas. Overexpression of a superactive Ptf1a (Ptf1a-VP16) in this same region also promotes development of ectopic pancreas, but in this case only exocrine cells are induced. It is not understood how Ptf1a play a role in both endocrine and exocrine cell fate specification, my project is to identify genes that Ptf1a turns on in order to specify mature cell types in the pancreas. Therefore, by comparing the gene expression profiles of endoderm overexpressing either Ptf1a or Ptf1a-VP16 we will be able to define what genes must be activated for endocrine cell development (upregulated in Ptf1a, but downregulated in Ptf1a-VP16) and those that must be activated for exocrine cell development (upregulated in both Ptf1a and Ptf1a-VP16).