Macrophage migration inhibitory factor induces epithelial to mesenchymal transition, enhances tumor aggressiveness and predicts clinical outcome in resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

ABSTRACT: MIF is a proinflammatory cytokine and is implicated in cancer. A higher MIF level is found in many human cancer and cancer-prone inflammatory diseases, including chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. We tested the hypothesis that MIF contributes to pancreatic cancer aggressiveness and predicts disease outcome in resected cases. Consistent with our hypothesis we found that an elevated MIF mRNA expression in tumors was significantly associated with poor outcome in resected cases. Multivariate Cox-regression analysis further showed that MIF is independently associated with patients' survival (HR = 2.26, 95% CI = 1.17-4.37, p = 0.015). Mechanistic analyses revealed that MIF overexpression decreased E-cadherin and increased vimentin mRNA and protein levels in pancreatic cancer cell lines,

SUBMITTER: Funamizu N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3488363 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature