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Updated: Feb 3, 2026
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Published on: June 17, 2014
β-Catenin expression is associated with cell invasiveness in pancreatic cancer
Jin Niang Nan1, Ok Ran Kim1, Myung Ah Lee1,2
1Cancer Research Institute, Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
Background/Aims:
This study was tried to determine the role of β-catenin in invasion in pancreatic cancer.
Methods:
We analyzed cancer invasiveness according to β-catenin expression in pancreatic cancer cell line. We also investigated the change in cancer invasiveness when β-catenin expression was changed. To enhance β-catenin activity, we treated low β-catenin cancer cell line, PANC1, with Wnt-3a conditioned media and transected β-catenin. We also treated high β-catenin expressing cell line, BxPC3, with XAV939, β-catenin inhibitor and siRNA for β-catenin to inhibit β-catenin expression.
Results:
The high β-catenin expressing cancer cell line, BxPC3 showed higher invasiveness, and low β-catenin expressing cell lines, PANC1and MIA-PaCa-2, were less invasive. By adding the Wnt-3a conditioned media or performing transfection with β-catenin in PANC1, cell invasiveness was increased (p < 0.05 and p < 0.01, respectively). On inhibition of β-catenin by XAV939 and siRNA in BxPC3 cell line, invasiveness was significantly decreased (p < 0.01). It was not correlated with the expression of cluster of differentiation 44 (CD44) or CD44 variant 6 (CD44v6), the invasion related protein. On analysis of association with metastasis in human tissue, Wnt-3a expression was statistically correlated with the development of metastasis (p = 0.029).
Conclusion:
Based on our data, β-catenin may be involved in cancer invasion in pancreatic cancer, and it is not associated with CD44, the invasion related protein.
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