Figure 1.

Mcl-1 is over-expressed in pancreatic cancer cells and human pancreatic cancer tissues. A. Pancreatic cancer cell lines show increased Mcl-1 levels compared with human pancreatic ductal epithelial cells at both the mRNA and protein levels. Left panel: RNA isolated from pancreatic cancer cells and normal ductal cells (HPDEC) show significantly increased expression of Mcl-1 (*, p < 0.01; n = 3) in pancreatic cancer cells compared with HPDEC cells. Expression of Mcl-1 was normalized against 18S. Right Panel: Immunoblot analysis of Mcl-1 expression in pancreatic cancer cell lines and human pancreatic ductal epithelial cells (HPDEC). β-Actin was used as a loading control. B. Immunohistochemical analysis of Mcl-1 expression in pancreatic cancer and its adjacent normal pancreatic tissue. (Top left: Normal Pancreas; Top middle: Patient 1 tumor T₂N₀M₀; Top right: Patient 1 adjacent normal; Bottom middle: Patient 2 with liver metastasis T₂N₁M₁; Bottom right: Patient 2 adjacent normal). Scale bar, 100 μm. C. Left, Mcl-1 expression was detected in 23 of 28 human pancreatic cancer tissues. All 11 cases of metastatic pancreatic cancer tissues, show Mcl-1 expression. In contrast, only 12 of 17 cases of non-metastatic pancreatic cancer tissues have Mcl-1 expression. The expression of Mcl-1 was correlated with pancreatic cancer metastasis (p < 0.05), TNM staging (p < 0.01), but not with tumor size, or differentiation. Right, human pancreatic cancer tissues show higher expression of Mcl-1 in pancreatic cancer tissues, compared with normal pancreas or adjacent normal pancreatic tissues from cancer patients. Protein lysates were immunoblotted for Mcl-1 and β-Actin used as a loading control.