Expression analysis of a preinvasive pancreatic cancer mouse model with and without p120 catenin

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly cancers with a 5 year survival rate of about 5%. Therapeutic options are limited, especially for patients that present with late state disease and metastasis. Although the metastatic burden of pancreatic cancer is usually high, little is known about the mechanisms that regulate delamination and dissemination of epithelial cells from preinvasive and malignant pancreatic lesions. Here, we used a preinvasive mouse model of pancreatic cancer to conditionally knockout p120 catenin (Ctnnd1). Mice with biallelic loss of p120 catenin progressively develop high grade PanIN lesions and neoplasia accompanied by prominent acute and chronic inflammatory processes. Loss of p120 catenin in the context of oncogenic Kras also promotes remarkable apical and basal epithelial cell extrusion. Abundant single epithelial cells exit PanIN epithelium basally, survive, and display features of malignancy. Similar extrusion defects are observed following p120 catenin knockdown in vitro, and these effects are completely abrogated by activation of S1P/S1P2 signaling. Our results establish p120 catenin and S1P/S1P2 signaling as novel regulators of non-EMT mediated epithelial cell invasion in pancreatic neoplasia. Transcriptomes of KCiMist1G; p120wt/wt and KCiMist1G; p120f/f pancreases were compared, with three replicates each, using microarray.