Porcine pancreatic ductal epithelial cells transformed with KRAS and SV40T are tumorigenic.

We describe our initial studies in the development of an orthotopic, genetically defined, large animal model of pancreatic cancer. Primary pancreatic epithelial cells were isolated from pancreatic duct of domestic pigs. A transformed cell line was generated from these primary cells with oncogenic KRAS and SV40T.

Role of keratan sulfate expression in human pancreatic cancer malignancy.

Keratan sulfate (KS) is a sulfated linear polymer of N-acetyllactosamine. Proteoglycans carrying keratan sulfate epitopes were majorly observed in cornea, cartilage and brain; and mainly involved in embryonic development, cornea transparency, and wound healing process. Recently, expression of KS in cancer has been shown to be highly associated with advanced tumor grade and poor prognosis.

Loss of E-cadherin and epithelial to mesenchymal transition is not required for cell motility in tissues or for metastasis.

Loss of E-cadherin has been long considered to be a major hallmark of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and has been reported in various cancers. P120 catenin regulates E-cadherin stability on the cell surface and also plays a role in intracellular signaling by modulating nuclear transcription. We recently characterized the nature of interactions between p120 catenin and Mucin 1 (MUC1) in pancreatic cancer.

Aberrant expression of mucin core proteins and o-linked glycans associated with progression of pancreatic cancer.

Purpose: Mucin expression is a common feature of most adenocarcinomas and features prominently in current attempts to improve diagnosis and therapy for pancreatic cancer and other adenocarcinomas. We investigated the expression of a number of mucin core proteins and associated O-linked glycans expressed in pancreatic adenocarcinoma-sialyl Tn (STn), Tn, T antigen, sialyl Lewis A (CA19-9), sialyl Lewis C (SLeC), Lewis X (LeX), and sialyl LeX (SLeX)-during the progression of pancreatic cancer from early stages to metastatic disease.

Experimental Design: Immunohistochemical analyses of mucin and associated glycan expression on primary tumor and liver metastatic tumor samples were conducted with matched sets of tissues from 40 autopsy patients diagnosed with pancreatic adenocarcinoma, 14 surgically resected tissue samples, and 8 normal pancreata.

Molecular pathology of early pancreatic cancer.

We describe the pathology of early pancreatic cancer and present an overview of known molecular alterations that occur in these lesions. There are three defined precursor lesions in current models of pancreatic cancer: pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN), mucinous cystic neoplasms (MCN), and intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMN). Molecular alterations detected in these lesions include: telomeres, K-ras and downstream targets, p16/CDKN2A, p53, SMAD4/DPC4, microRNAs, mucins and their post-translational processing, inflammatory cytokines, CEACAM, and epigenetic alterations.