Xi Wan, Parminder Kaur, Yanping Cao, Yifan Zhu* and Yonggang Ma*
Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a disease with high mortality rates due to metastasis. Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) is correlated with metastasis and drug resistance in PDAC. Therefore, elucidating the changes in cellular characteristics in PDAC before and after EMT is essential to understand EMT in PDAC cells and to develop novel therapeutic methods for PDAC.
The human PDAC cell line Panc-1 was used to measure cell stiffness before and after EMT induction by TGF-β. EMT biomarker expression levels were measured to identify cell status using real-time PCR, immune cytochemistry. Changes in cell stiffness before and after EMT were investigated by Atomic Force Microscope with Young’s modulus. Cell size was determined by image analysis. Cellular lipids were examined. Expression levels of lamin A, the gene associated with cell stiffness, were quantified by real-time PCR.
After induced EMT, PDAC cells were stiffer with larger cell sizes than before EMT. The expression levels of cytoskeletal proteins did not change significantly, but lamin A expression was significantly reduced after EMT. The amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids in the cell membrane increased, while monounsaturated fatty acids decreased. We reported the changes of cell stiffness and other biological characteristics in PDAC cells after EMT.
Cell stiffness was determined by multiple factors before and after EMT. These results provide new directions for understanding EMT in PDAC, which is critical for developing new therapies for PDAC.
Published Date: 2025-08-15; Received Date: 2025-07-16
