Conditioned medium (CM) from clonal sub-populations of the pancreatic cancer cell line, MiaPaCa-2 with differing invasive abilities, were examined for their effect on in vitro invasion. Conditioned medium from Clone #3 (CM#3) strongly promoted invasion, while CM from Clone #8 (CM#8) inhibited invasion in vitro. 2D DIGE followed by MALDI-TOF MS analysis of CM#3 and CM#8 identified 41 proteins which were differentially regulated; 27 proteins were down-regulated and 14 proteins up-regulated in the invasion-promoting CM#3 when compared to CM#8. Western blotting analysis confirmed the down-regulated expression of gelsolin and the up-regulation of aldehyde dehydrogenase 1A1 in CM#3.
IntroductionPancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancers and is the 8th leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Europe [1]. Pancreatic cancer is associated with poor prognosis, the rate of mortality being similar to that of the rate of incidence. All-stage 5-year survival rate is less than 5% [2,3]. Conventional approaches including, surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and combinations of these therapies, have had little effect on the survival rate of patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer appears to be inherently resistant to a wide variety of chemotherapeutic agents, which can differ greatly and are unrelated with respect to molecular structure and target specificity. The malignant progression, invasion and metastasis of this cancer are complex and poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the proteomic profile of proteins from the conditioned media of two sub-clones of a pancreatic cancer cell line with varying in vitro invasive characteristics. Proteins released by pancreatic tumour cells may be detectable in bodily fluids such as urine, blood, serum and pancreatic ductal juice. Such proteins could be useful in early diagnosis, monitoring and perhaps even molecular classification of pancreatic tumours [4]. Proteomic analyses of pancreatic tissue, pancreatic juice as well as blood plasma and sera have been reported [5]. The main biomarker currently available for pancreatic cancer detection, CA19-9, has been demonstrated to be quite sensitive and specific in the diagnosis of this malignancy [6,7], however, this marker is not fully specific as false-positive or false-negative findings occur in patients with other gastrointestinal malignancies and also in patients with benign disease, particularly when associated with obstructive jaundice or cirrhosis, which may contribute to late diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Approximately 10% of the population with the Lewis negative genotype are not able to produce CA 19-9,