Increased expression of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A2/B1 (hnRNP) in pancreatic tissue from smokers and pancreatic tumor cells.

Academic Article

Abstract

  • Pancreatic cancer is a major cause of deaths in the United States, and has one of the lowest 5-year survival rates. Early diagnosis has not been possible due to the lack of reliable early tumor markers. The heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1/B2 (hnRNP) was recently shown to be up-regulated in the early stage of lung cancer. This protein plays an important role in biogenesis and transport of mRNA. Up-regulation of hnRNP usually precedes morphological differentiation and is considered a good biomarker in the early stages of cancer development. Because smoking is a high risk factor for pancreatic cancer, this study examined the expression of hnRNP in human pancreatic tissues from smokers and non-smokers. A two-fold increase in expression of hnRNP was found overall in smokers when compared to non-smokers and smokers who quit (P<0.05). The increase in expression of hnRNP was higher in female smokers compared to female non-smokers. High levels of expression was also shown in a limited number of human pancreatic adenocarcinomas and two pancreatic tumor cell lines, HPAF-11 and SU 86.86. HP-8, a normal primary pancreatic cell line, did not express hnRNP. These results strongly suggest that up-regulation of hnRNP may be a good candidate for early screening for pancreatic cancer because of its activation in pancreatic tissue from smokers and activation in pancreatic adenocarcinomas. Over-expression of hnRNP has been suggested as evidence that normal transcriptional regulation is altered.

    • Authors

    Published In

  • Cancer Letters  Journal

    • Keywords

  • Cell Cycle, DNA, Complementary, Female, Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonucleoprotein A1, Heterogeneous-Nuclear Ribonucleoprotein Group A-B, Heterogeneous-Nuclear Ribonucleoproteins, Humans, Lung Neoplasms, Male, Pancreas, Pancreatic Neoplasms, RNA, Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction, Ribonucleoproteins, Smoking, Tumor Cells, Cultured, Up-Regulation

    • Digital Object Identifier (doi)

    Author List

  • Yan-Sanders Y; Hammons GJ; Lyn-Cook BD

    • Start Page

  • 215

    • End Page

  • 220

    • Volume

  • 183

    • Issue

  • 2