Volume 63, Issue 3 pp. 524-537
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Cancer-associated fibroblasts promote stemness maintenance and gemcitabine resistance via HIF-1α/miR-21 axis under hypoxic conditions in pancreatic cancer

Keping Deng

Keping Deng

Department of General Surgery, The First Hospital of Changsha (The Affiliated Changsha Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University), Changsha, Hunan Province, China

Search for more papers by this author
Fang Zou

Fang Zou

Department of General Surgery, The First Hospital of Changsha (The Affiliated Changsha Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University), Changsha, Hunan Province, China

Search for more papers by this author
Jin Xu

Jin Xu

Department of General Surgery, The First Hospital of Changsha (The Affiliated Changsha Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University), Changsha, Hunan Province, China

Search for more papers by this author
Dayong Xu

Dayong Xu

Department of General Surgery, The First Hospital of Changsha (The Affiliated Changsha Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University), Changsha, Hunan Province, China

Search for more papers by this author
Zhen Luo

Corresponding Author

Zhen Luo

Department of General Surgery, The First Hospital of Changsha (The Affiliated Changsha Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University), Changsha, Hunan Province, China

Correspondence Zhen Luo, Department of General Surgery, The First Hospital of Changsha (The Affiliated Changsha Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South Univeristy), No. 311 Yingpan Rd, 410005 Changsha, Hunan Province, China.

Email: [email protected]

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 10 January 2024
Citations: 1

Keping Deng and Fang Zou contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Gemcitabine (GEM) resistance affects chemotherapy efficacy of pancreatic cancer (PC). Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) possess the ability of regulating chemoresistance. This study probed the mechanism of hypoxia-treated CAFs regulating cell stemness and GEM resistance in PC. Miapaca-2/SW1990 were co-cultured with PC-derived CAFs under normoxic/hypoxic conditions. Cell viability/self-renewal ability was determined by MTT/sphere formation assays, respectively. Protein levels of CD44, CD133, Oct4, and Sox2 were determined by western blot. GEM tumoricidal assay was performed. PC cell GEM resistance was evaluated by MTT assay. CAFs were cultured at normoxia/hypoxia. HIF-1α and miR-21 expression levels were assessed by RT-qPCR and western blot, with their binding sites and binding relationship predicted and verified. CAF-extracellular vesicles (EVs) were incubated with Miapaca-2 cells. The RAS/AKT/ERK pathway activation was detected by western blot. PC xenograft models were established and treated with hypoxic CAF-EVs and GEM. CAFs and PC cell co-culture increased cell stemness maintenance, GEM resistance, cell viability, stem cell sphere number, and protein levels of CD44, CD133, Oct4, and Sox2, and weakened GEM tumoricidal ability to PC cells, with the effects further enhanced by hypoxia. Hypoxia induced HIF-1α and miR-21 overexpression in CAFs. Hypoxia promoted CAFs to secrete high-level miR-21 EVs via the HIF-1α/miR-21 axis, and activated the miR-21/RAS/AKT/ERK pathway. CAF-EVs promoted GEM resistance in PC via the miR-21/RAS/ATK/ERK pathway in vivo. Hypoxia promoted CAFs to secrete high-level miR-21 EVs through the HIF-1α/miR-21 axis, and activated the miR-21/RAS/AKT/ERK pathway via EVs to trigger stemness maintenance and GEM resistance in PC.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.