Pancreas Cancer Proteomics

Background: Glypican-1 (GPC1) is expressed in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cells and adjacent stromal fibroblasts. Recently, GPC1 circulating exosomes (crExos) have been shown to be able to detect early stages of PDAC. In this study, we investigated the usefulness of crExos GPC1 as a biomarker for PDAC. Methods: Plasma was obtained from patients with benign pancreatic disease ( n = 16) and PDAC ( n = 27) prior to pancreatectomy, and crExos were isolated by ultra-centrifugation...

Circulating microvesicles are able to mediate long-distance cell-cell communications. It is essential to understand how microvesicles from pancreatic cancer act on other cells in the body. In this work, serum-derived microvesicles were isolated from 10 patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer and healthy controls. Using Cell Transwell and WST-1 reagents, we found that microvesicles from pancreatic cancer accelerated migration and proliferation of PANC-1 cells. Meanwhile, the proliferation of these cancer-microvesicle-treated cells (CMTCs) was affected less by 10 μM of gemcitabine relative to healthy microvesicle-treated cells (HMTCs)...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a life-threatening disease and there is an urgent need to develop improved therapeutic approaches. The role of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) in PDAC stroma is not well defined even though dense desmoplastic reactions are characteristic of PDAC histology. We aimed to explore the role of JNK in PDAC stroma in mice. We crossed Ptf1aCre/+ ;KrasG12D/+ mice with JNK1-/- mice to generate Ptf1aCre/+ ;KrasG12D/+ ;JNK1-/- (Kras;JNK1-/- ) mice. Tumor weight was significantly lower in Kras;JNK1-/- mice than in Kras;JNK1+/- mice, whereas histopathological features were similar...

PURPOSE: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a lethal disease characterized by its late diagnosis, poor prognosis and rapid development of drug resistance. Using the data-independent acquisition (DIA) technique, the authors applied a spectral library-based proteomic approach to analyze N-glycosylated peptides in human plasma, in the context of pancreatic cancer study. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: The authors extended the application of DIA to the quantification of N-glycosylated peptides enriched from plasma specimens from a clinically well-defined cohort that consists of patients with early stage PDAC, chronic pancreatitis and healthy subjects...

PURPOSE: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary malignant liver tumor and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Cirrhosis induced by hepatitis-C virus (HCV) infection is the most critical risk factor for HCC. However, the mechanism of HCV-induced carcinogenesis is not fully understood. Plasma microparticles (PMP) contribute to numerous physiological and pathological processes and contain proteins whose composition correlates to the respective pathophysiological conditions...

Designing an experiment for quantitative proteomic analysis is not a trivial task. One of the key factors influencing the success of such studies is the number of biological replicates included in the analysis. This, along with the measured variation will determine the statistical power of the analysis. Presented is a simple yet powerful analysis to determine the appropriate sample size required for reliable and reproducible results, based on the total variation (technical and biological). This approach can also be applied retrospectively for the interpretation of results as it takes into account both significance (p value) and quantitative difference (fold change) of the results...

Cancer metabolism has been extensively investigated by various tools, and the fact of diverse metabolic reprogramming in cancer cells has been gradually unveiled. In this review, we discuss some contributions in cancer metabolism by general proteomic analysis and post-translational modification analysis using mass spectrometry (MS) technique. Instead of following one or several metabolic enzymes/pathways, the current MS approach can quickly identify a large number of proteins and compare their expression levels in different samples, providing a potentially comprehensive picture of cancer metabolism...