Project description:Background Both activated tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and immune-suppressive cells, such as regulatory T cells (Tregs), in the tumor microenvironment (TME) play an important role in the prognosis of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Methods The densities of TILs, programmed death receptor 1 (PD-1) + T cells, and forkhead box P3 (Foxp3) + T cells were analyzed by immunohistochemical staining. The associations of the immunological status of the PDAC microenvironment with overall survival (OS) time and disease-free survival (DFS) time were evaluated. Results PDAC patients with a high density of TILs in the TME or PD-1-positive T cells in tertiary lymphoid aggregates (TLAs) demonstrated a significantly better prognosis than those with a low density of TILs or PD-1-negativity, respectively. Moreover, PDAC patients with high levels of Foxp3-expressing T cells showed a worse prognosis than those with low levels of Foxp3-expressing T cells. Importantly, even with a high density of the TILs in TME or PD-1-positive T cells in TLAs, PDAC patients with high levels of Foxp3-expressing T cells showed a worse prognosis than patients with low levels of Foxp3-expressing T cells. A PDAC TME with a high density of TILs/high PD-1 positivity/low Foxp3 expression was an independent predictive marker associated with superior prognosis. Conclusion Combined assessment of TILs, PD-1+ cells, and Foxp3+ T cells in the TME may predict the prognosis of PDAC patients following surgical resection. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12885-021-08911-4.
Project description:Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is characterized by fast tumor progression and diagnosis at advanced, inoperable stages. Previous studies could demonstrate an involvement of miR-192-5p in epigenetic regulation of visceral carcinomas. Due to contradictory results, however, the clinical utility of miR-192-5p in PDAC has yet to be determined. MiR-192-5p expression was analyzed by RT-qRT-PCR in human PDAC and benign tissue (n = 78), blood serum (n = 81) and serum exosomes (n = 74), as well as in PDAC cell lines (n = 5), chemoresistant cell clones (n = 2), and pancreatic duct cell line H6c7. Analysis of EMT-associated (epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition) proteins was performed by immunohistochemistry and Western blot. MiR-192-5p was deregulated in PDAC as compared to healthy controls (HCs), with downregulation in macrodissected tissue (p < 0.001) and upregulation in blood serum of PDAC UICC (Union for International Cancer Control) stage IV (p = 0.016) and serum exosomes of PDAC UICC stages II to IV (p < 0.001). MiR-192-5p expression in tumor tissue was significantly lower as compared to corresponding peritumoral tissue (PDAC UICC stage II: p < 0.001; PDAC UICC stage III: p = 0.024), while EMT markers ZEB1 and ZEB2 were more frequently expressed in tumor tissue as compared to peritumoral tissue, HCs, and chronic pancreatitis. Tissue-derived (AUC of 0.86; p < 0.0001) and exosomal (AUC of 0.83; p = 0.0004) miR-192-5p could differentiate between PDAC and HCs with good accuracy. Furthermore, high expression of miR-192-5p in PDAC tissue of curatively resected PDAC patients correlated with prolonged overall and recurrence-free survival in multivariate analysis. In vitro, miR-192-5p was downregulated in gemcitabine-resistant cell clones of AsPC-1 (p = 0.029). Transient transfection of MIA PaCa-2 cells with miR-192-5p mimic resulted in downregulation of ZEB2. MiR-192-5p seems to possess a tumor-suppressive role and high potential as a diagnostic and prognostic marker in PDAC.
Project description:Frequent disease relapse and a lack of effective therapies result in a very poor outcome in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients. Thus, identification of prognostic biomarkers and possible therapeutic targets is essential. Besides their function in cell-cell adhesion, desmogleins may play a role in tumour progression and invasion that has not been investigated in PDAC to date. This study evaluated desmoglein expression as a biomarker in PDAC.Using immunohistochemistry, we examined desmoglein 1 (DSG1), desmoglein 2 (DSG2) and desmoglein 3 (DSG3) expression in the tumour tissue of 165 resected PDAC cases. Expression levels were correlated to the patients' clinicopathological parameters and postoperative survival times. We confirmed these results in two independent gene expression data sets.A total of 36% of the tumours showed high DSG3 expression that correlated significantly with shorter patient survival (P=0.011) and poor tumour differentiation (P<0.001), whereas no such association was detected for DSG1 or DSG2. In RNA-Seq data and in microarray expression data, high DSG3 expression correlated significantly with poor survival (P=0.000356 and P=0.00499).We identify DSG3 as a negative prognostic biomarker in resected PDAC, as high DSG3 expression is associated with poor overall survival and poor tumour-specific survival. These findings suggest DSG3 and its downstream signalling pathways as possible therapeutic targets in DSG3-expressing PDAC.
Project description:Introduction: The dismally slow improvement in patient survival over the years for pancreatic cancer patients is mainly due to two factors: the late diagnosis, at which point the disease is spread to distant organs; and the fact that tumor cells are surrounded by a dense, highly immunosuppressive microenvironment. The tumor microenvironment not only shields pancreatic cancer cells from chemotherapy but also leaves it unsusceptible to various immunotherapeutic strategies that have been proven successful in other types of cancer. Areas covered: This review highlights the main components of the pancreatic tumor microenvironment, how they cross-talk with each other to generate stroma and promote tumor growth. Additionally, we discuss the most promising treatment targets in the microenvironment whose modulation can be robustly tested in combination with standard of care chemotherapy. Currently, active clinical trials for pancreatic cancer involving components of the microenvironment are also listed. Expert opinion: Although immunotherapeutic approaches involving checkpoint inhibition are being pursued enthusiastically, there is still more work to be done with several other emerging immune targets that could provide therapeutic benefit.
Project description:Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is one of the most aggressive and lethal cancers. Surgical resection is the only curable treatment option, but it is available for only a small fraction of patients at the time of diagnosis. With current therapeutic regimens, the average 5-year survival rate is less than 10% in pancreatic cancer patients. Immunotherapy has emerged as one of the most promising treatment options for multiple solid tumors of advanced stage. However, its clinical efficacy is suboptimal in most clinical trials on pancreatic cancer. Current studies have suggested that the tumor microenvironment is likely the underlying barrier affecting immunotherapy drug efficacy in pancreatic cancer. In this review, we discuss the role of the tumor microenvironment in pancreatic cancer and the latest advances in immunotherapy on pancreatic cancer.
Project description:Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly aggressive malignancy. Here we show that shotgun and targeted protein sequencing can be used to identify potential prognostic biomarkers in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimens from 9 patients with PDAC with "short" survival (<12 months) and 10 patients with "long" survival (>45 months) undergoing surgical resection. A total of 24 and 147 proteins were significantly upregulated [fold change ?2 or ?0.5 and P<0.05; or different detection frequencies (?5 samples)] in patients with "short" survival (including GLUT1) and "long" survival (including C9orf64, FAM96A, CDH1 and CDH17), respectively. STRING analysis of these proteins indicated a tight protein-protein interaction network centered on TP53. Ingenuity pathway analysis linked proteins representing "activated stroma factors" and "basal tumor factors" to poor prognosis of PDAC. It also highlighted TCF1 and CTNNB1 as possible upstream regulators. Further parallel reaction monitoring verified that seven proteins were upregulated in patients with "short" survival (MMP9, CLIC3, MMP8, PRTN3, P4HA2, THBS1 and FN1), while 18 proteins were upregulated in patients with "long" survival, including EPCAM, LGALS4, VIL1, CLCA1 and TPPP3. Thus, we verified 25 protein biomarker candidates for PDAC prognosis at the tissue level. Furthermore, an activated stroma status and protein-protein interactions with TP53 might be linked to poor prognosis of PDAC.
Project description:Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) leads to the majority of cancer-related deaths due to its morbidity with similar mortality. Lack of effective prognostic biomarkers are the main reason for belated post-operative intervention of recurrence which causes high mortality. Numerous systematic reviews and meta-analyses have explored the prognostic value of biomarkers in PDAC so far. In this article, we performed an umbrella review analyzing these studies to provide an overview of associations between prognostic biomarkers and PDAC survival outcome and synthesized these results to guide better clinical practice. Methods: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating the associations between PDAC survival outcomes and prognostic biomarkers were acquired via the PubMed and Embase databases from inception till February 1, 2020. Associations supported by nominally statistically significant results were classified into strong, highly suggestive, suggestive, and weak based on several critical factors such as the statistical significance of summary estimates, the number of events, the estimate of the largest study included, interstudy heterogeneity, small-study effects, 95% predictive interval (PI), excess significance bias, and the results of credibility ceiling sensitivity analyses. Results: We included 41 meta-analyses containing 63 associations between PDAC survival outcomes and prognostic biomarkers. Although, none was supported by strong evidence among these associations, an association between C-reactive protein to albumin ratio (CAR) and PDAC overall survival (OS) and an association between neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and PDAC OS were supported by highly suggestive evidence. Otherwise, the association between lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and PDAC OS was supported by suggestive evidence. The remaining 60 associations were supported by weak or not suggestive evidence. Conclusion: Associations between CAR or NLR and PDAC OS were supported by highly suggestive evidence. And the association between LDH and PDAC OS was supported by suggestive evidence. Although the methodological quality of the included systematic reviews and meta-analyses which were evaluated by AMSTAR2.0 is generally poor, the identification of the relatively robust prognostic biomarkers of PDAC may guide better post-operative intervention and follow-up to prolong patients' survival.
Project description:Pancreatic cancer has a complex tumor microenvironment which engages in extensive crosstalk between cancer cells, cancer-associated fibroblasts, and immune cells. Many of these interactions contribute to tumor resistance to anti-cancer therapies. Here, new therapeutic strategies designed to modulate the cancer-associated fibroblast and immune compartments of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas are described and clinical trials of novel therapeutics are discussed. Continued advances in our understanding of the pancreatic cancer tumor microenvironment are generating stromal and immune-modulating therapeutics that may improve patient responses to anti-tumor treatment.
Project description:Tumor-infiltrating immune cells and fibroblasts are significant components of the tumor microenvironment (TME) of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), and they participate in tumor progression as closely as tumor cells. However, the relationship between the features of the TME and patient outcomes and the interactions among TME components are still unclear. In this study, we evaluated the PDAC TME in terms of the quantity and location of cluster of differentiation (CD)4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, macrophages, stromal maturity, and tumor-stroma ratio (TSR), as evaluated by immunohistochemical staining of serial whole-tissue sections from 116 patients with PDAC. The density of T cells and macrophages (mainly activated macrophages) was significantly higher at the invasive margins (IMs) than at the tumor center (TC). CD4+ T cells were significantly association with all the other tumor-associated immune cells (TAIs) including CD8, CD68 and CD206 positive cells. Tumors of the non-mature (intermediate and immature) stroma type harbored significantly more CD8+ T cells at the IMs and more CD68+ macrophages at the IMs and the TC. The density of CD4+, CD8+, and CD206+ cells at the TC; CD206+ cells at the IMs; and tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) staging were independent risk factors for patient outcomes, and the c-index of the risk nomogram for predicting the survival probability based on the TME features and TNM staging was 0.772 (95% confidence interval: 0.713-0.832). PDAC harbored a significantly immunosuppressive TME, of which the IMs were the hot zones for TAIs, while cells at the TC were more predictive of prognosis. Our results indicated that the model based on the features of the TME and TNM staging could predict patient outcomes.
Project description:Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a malignant tumor with a specific tumor immune microenvironment (TIME). Therefore, investigating prognostic immune-related genes (IRGs) that are closely associated with TIME to predict PDAC clinical outcomes is necessary. In the present study, 459 samples of PDAC from the Genotype-Tissue Expression database, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) were included and a survival-associated module was identified using weighted gene co-expression network analysis. Based on the Cox regression analysis and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator analysis, four IRGs (2'-5'-oligoadenylate synthetase 1, MET proto-oncogene, receptor tyrosine kinase, interleukin 1 receptor type 2 and interleukin 20 receptor subunit β) were included in the prognostic model to calculate the risk score (RS), and patients with PDAC were divided into high- and low-RS groups. Kaplan-Meier survival and receiver operating characteristic curve analyses demonstrated that the low-RS group had significantly improved survival conditions compared with the high-RS group in TCGA training set. The prognostic function of the model was also validated using ICGC and GEO cohorts. To investigate the mechanism of different overall survival between the high- and low-RS groups, the present study included Estimation of Stromal and Immune Cells in Malignant Tumor Tissues Using Expression Data and Cell Type Identification by Estimating Relative Subset of Known RNA Transcripts algorithms to investigate the state of the tumor microenvironment and immune infiltration inpatients in the cohort from TCGA. In summary, four genes associated with the TIME of PDAC were identified, which may provide a reference for clinical treatment.