Immune-competent mice bearing syngeneic pancreatic cancer (Panc02 and mT3-2D) that were treated with the combination of CCK receptor antagonists and immune checkpoint blockade antibodies survived significantly longer with smaller tumors.
We obtained pancreatic tissues from 5 patients undergoing surgery for pancreatic cancer and prepared 80-μm slices; tissues were exposed to supramaximal cholecystokinin octapeptide (CCK-8) or ethanol and a low concentration of CCK-8 and analyzed by immunoblot and immunofluorescence analyses.
The tumor-associated fibrosis that is so prevalent in the pancreatic cancer microenvironment was significantly decreased with CCK-receptor antagonist therapy because fibroblasts also have CCK receptors.
The effect of conditioned medium from PaSCs activated with Notch3 siRNA on pancreatic cancer (LTPA) cells was also detected with CCK-8 assays and scratch experiments.
Though, the exact characterization of CCK and Gs receptors subtype (cholecystokinin type A receptor [CCKAR] and cholecystokinin type B receptor/gastrin receptor [CCKBR/GR]) in stomach cancer (SC) and pancreatic cancer (PC) is still controversial and necessities further validation.
This review will summarize what is known regarding CCK, its receptors, and pancreatic cancer, and also what is unknown and requires further investigation to determine which comes first, the chicken or the egg, "CCK or the cancer."
Neither treatment of pancreatic cancer cells with CCK antibodies nor the down-regulation of CCK mRNA and peptide by shRNAs altered growth in vitro or in vivo.
The suppression of the CCK-2/gastrin signaling pathway by treatment with Z-360 could be a useful approach for potentiating prolonged survival of pancreatic cancer patients receiving gemcitabine therapy.
These studies demonstrate that gastrin and the CCK-C receptor form an autocrine loop in human pancreatic cancer that plays a role in regulating growth.
A misspliced form of the cholecystokinin-B/gastrin receptor in pancreatic carcinoma: role of reduced sellular U2AF35 and a suboptimal 3'-splicing site leading to retention of the fourth intron.
Localization of CCK receptors to neoplastic cells within resected human tissue specimens would be suggestive of its potential action as an in vivo promoter of human pancreatic cancer.
These data indicate that both CCK receptor subtypes can mediate growth inhibitory responses in pancreatic cancer cell lines and raise the possibility that CCK exerts a predominant growth inhibitory action on human pancreatic cancer cells.
It is suggested that loxiglumide inhibits the in vivo and in vitro growth of human pancreatic cancer, perhaps independently of its action as a CCK antagonist, and this study also suggests that loxiglumide may be a new type of therapeutic agent to be used for the treatment of human pancreatic cancer.