Science discovers link between inflammation and pancreatic cancer development

The authors demonstrated that the mutation KRAS (present in 95% of pancreatic cancers) supports this adaptive response, leading to selective pressure to maintain oncogenic mutations

Corresponding author, Dr.

Clarify the link between inflammation and cancer

For a long time, inflammation has been associated with the tumor development of several cancers, but the specific reasons behind this connection were not previously known

The researchers stimulated transient inflammation in a pancreatic cancer model system driven by kras

Deep molecular analysis of epithelial cells after a single inflammatory event showed that after tissue damage recovered, massive reprogramming and epigenetic regulation of gene expression lasted for a long time, which researchers call "epithelial memory

Epithelial memory can respond quickly to limit tissue damage during recurrent pancreatitis

Cell reprogramming caused by inflammation also promotes the acquisition of acinar-ductal metaplasia (ADM), which is a reversible process by which pancreatic acinar cells acquire the characteristics of ductal cells

In the context of epithelial memory, repeated episodes of inflammation lead to the rapid and widespread appearance of ADM, and the signs of cell damage are small, indicating that cell reprogramming protects the pancreas from the accumulation of tissue damage

Previous studies have shown that KRAS mutation can induce and stabilize ADM

Ho said: "We are trying to better understand how cells maintain the epithelial memory we observe, but our data suggests that KRAS initially has a beneficial role in pancreatitis

The research team is currently studying how to stimulate ADM in the pancreas while combating the selective pressure of KRAS mutations

Journal Reference :

1. Edoardo Del Poggetto, I-Lin Ho, Chiara Balestrieri, Er-Yen Yen, Shaojun Zhang, Francesca Citron, Rutvi Shah, Denise Corti, Giuseppe R.