The pancreas provides both the enzymes that digest the food in the gut and the hormones that control the utilization of nutrients supplied by that digested food. Two distinct components of the pancreas, the exocrine and endocrine compartments, accomplish these related tasks. The ductal and acinar cells of the exocrine compartment make up most of the organ, and the islets of Langerhans of the endocrine portion are scattered throughout the exocrine matrix.

During pancreatic development, a common pool of progenitor cells in the early gut endoderm differentiates into these distinct cell types. Positional and …