FIGURE 2:

uPA controls chemoresistance of pancreatic cancer cells to gemcitabine. (A) SP cells derived from MIA PaCa-2 and PANC-1 cells treated with shRNA specific for uPA (SP + puPA), untreated SP, and ΔSP cells derived from MIA PaCa-2 and PANC-1 cells were subjected to various concentrations of gemcitabine (0, 10, 100, 1000 nM), and cell cycle analysis was performed by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. (B) H&E staining of the paraffin sections of the tumors obtained from nude mice in which SP and ΔSP cells derived from MIA PaCa-2 cells that had been exposed to either puPA or gemcitabine or both as described in Materials and Methods were implanted orthotopically (100,000 cells/mouse). (C) Graphic representation of the tumor sizes in nude mice after orthotopic implantation of SP and ΔSP cells derived from MIA PaCa-2 cells (100,000 cells/mouse) that had been exposed to either puPA or gemcitabine (mean ± SD; n = 5; ΔSP, p = 0.01, and SP, p = 0.008).