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Published on: January 28, 2017
An Analysis of the mRNA Expression of Peripheral-Blood Stem and Progenitor Cell Markers in Pancreatic Neoplastic
Krzysztof Dąbkowski1, Maciej Tarnowski2,3, Krzysztof Safranow4
1Department of Gastroenterology, Pomeranian Medical University, 71-252 Szczecin, Poland.
Background:
Our aim was to assess the expression profiles of the messenger RNA (mRNA) expression profiles of stem-cell genes (POU5F1, NANOG) and pancreatic progenitor genes (CK19, HES1, INS, PDX1) in peripheral-blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in selected neoplastic pancreatic diseases, such as cancer and neuroendocrine tumors, to identify neoplastic disease markers in the pancreas.
Methods:
In this study, 49 patients diagnosed with pancreatic neoplastic diseases (37 with cancer and 12 with neuroendocrine tumors) and 34 control patients, all of whom were hospitalized at a tertiary center, were enrolled. Venous blood samples were collected from the participants, and RNA was extracted from PBMCs. The mRNA expression levels of six stem-cell and pancreatic progenitor markers- POU5F1 (POU class 5 homeobox 1), NANOG, CK19 (keratin 19), HES1 (HES family bHLH transcription factor 1), INS (insulin), and PDX1 (pancreatic and duodenal homeobox 1)-were quantified via real-time quantitative PCR. The data were statistically analyzed to explore associations between gene-expression levels and various clinical, biochemical, and morphological parameters (including full blood count, Ca 19-9, weight, height, and BMI) via the Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann-Whitney U test, and Spearman rank correlation coefficient.
Results:
The results revealed that the expression of the gene associated with early stem cells, NANOG (median= 0.002, p = 0.03), as well as the genes encoding insulin INS (median = 0.004, p = 0.02) and CK19 (median 0.0003, p = 0.005), was significantly elevated in patients with pancreatic cancer. However, the gene-expression levels in patients with neuroendocrine tumors did not exhibit statistically significant differences compared to those observed in the control group. Additionally, no significant differences in gene expression were observed among patients at different stages of pancreatic cancer. Furthermore, CK19 overexpression was found to be positively correlated with inflammatory markers, specifically C-reactive protein (CRP) and WBC, in patients with pancreatic cancer.
Conclusions:
An elevated mRNA expression of specific stem and pancreatic progenitor genes (NANOG, INS, CK19) in PBMCs may serve as a potential markers for pancreatic cancer, reflecting the disease's interplay with systemic inflammation.
