PACADD-159

Growth Characteristics of Primary and Expandable Pancreatic Cancer Cell Lines

Guo's team addresses the challenge that primary pancreatic cancer cells become highly vulnerable and difficult to maintain after losing their tumor microenvironment. They investigated whether lentiviral transduction could generate expandable primary pancreatic cancer cell lines retaining original tumor-specific characteristics, including chemosensitivity, for patient-specific chemotherapy screening.

Figure 1 shows the study flowchart. Cell morphology was assessed in 2D culture (Figure 2A). Primary MaPac107 (Pri-MaPac107) exhibited epithelial monolayer characteristics with a fusiform-organized pattern, growing in clusters before confluency with irregularly shaped nuclei; this pattern disappeared at confluence. Expandable MaPac107 (Ex-MaPac107) shared identical morphology. Primary PaCaDD159 (Pri-PaCaDD159) proliferated as epithelial monolayers with lumpy, cluster-like organization, featuring ovoid cells with small round nuclei; Ex-PaCaDD159 showed matching morphology. Primary PaCaDD165 (Pri-PaCaDD165) grew as small polygonal cells with a cobblestone pattern, prominent nuclei, and rapid proliferation; Ex-PaCaDD165 showed no morphological differences.

Growth curves and doubling times are shown in Figure 2B, C. Ex-MaPac107 and Ex-PaCaDD165 exhibited higher proliferation rates than their primary counterparts, while Ex-PaCaDD159 proliferated significantly slower than Pri-PaCaDD159. Despite this unexpected reduction, the remaining two expandable lines demonstrated enhanced proliferation in 2D culture.