Establishment and characterization of 6 novel patient-derived primary pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cell lines from Korean pancreatic cancer patients.

BACKGROUND

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas are among the most malignant neoplasms and have very poor prognosis. Our understanding of various cancers has recently improved the survival of patients with cancer, except for pancreatic cancers. Establishment of primary cancer cell lines of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas will be useful for understanding the molecular mechanisms of this disease.

METHODS

Eighty-one surgically resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas were collected. Six novel pancreatic cancer cell lines, AMCPAC01-06, were established and histogenetic characteristics were compared with their matched tissues. The clinicopathologic and molecular characteristics of the cell lines were investigated by and sequencing or SMAD4 and p53 immunohistochemistry. Xenografts using AMCPAC cell lines were established.

RESULTS

From the 81 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas, six (7.4% success rate) patient-derived primary cell lines were established. The six AMCPAC cell lines showed various morphologies and exhibited a wide range of doubling times. AMCPAC cell lines contained mutant in codons 12, 13, or 61 and in exon 5 as well as showed aberrant p53 (5 overexpression and 1 total loss) or DPC4 (all 6 intact) expression. AMCPAC cell lines demonstrated homology for the mutation and p53 expression compared with matched primary cancer tissues, but showed heterogeneous DPC4 expression patterns.

CONCLUSIONS

The novel AMCPAC01-06 cell lines established in this study may contribute to the understanding of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas. Retrospectively registered.