High expression of HPSE in PC tissues and cell lines and association with survival. (A) mRNA level of HPSE in PC and adjacent normal tissues. (B) Immunohistochemical staining (magnification, ×4 and ×20) for HPSE in PC (left panel) and adjacent normal tissue (right panel). (C) Kaplan-Meier analysis of overall and disease-free survival of patients with PC according to intra-tumoral HPSE expression. (D and E) mRNA and protein levels of HPSE in normal pancreatic ductal epithelial cells (HPDE6-C7) and four PC cells (Capan-2, PANC-1, AsPC-1 and BxPC-3). Data are presented as mean ± standard deviation. GAPDH served as an internal reference. All experiments were performed three times. **P<0.01, ***P<0.001, compared with adjacent tissue or HPDE6-C7 cells, respectively. HPSE, heparanase; PC, pancreatic cancer.