Effects of Fentanyl on pancreatic cancer cell proliferation and cancer stem cell differentiation
Celik, Feyzi and Duran, Tugce
Loading
Abstract
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive cancer due to the late
diagnosis and failure to respond to the treatment despite advances in
tumor biology and the development of new cancer therapeutic strategies.
It has been reported that these characteristics of pancreatic cancer
originate from cancer stem cells within the tumor mass. It has also been
reported that Fentanyl is a fast-acting analgesic that binds to the
mu-opioid receptors and some other mu-opioid receptors are involved in
this ccancer process. In this study, we determined the effect of Fentanyl
on PANC-1 cells, by assessing the gene expression of cancer stem cell
marker genes (Nanog, Oct4, and Sox2) and apoptosis-related genes (BAD,
Bax, Bcl-2, and p53) by Quantitative RealTime PCR. The number of cancer
stem cells was determined by Flow Cytometry. The results of our study
showed that Fentanyl administration decreased the number of cancer and
cancer stem cells in the PANC-1 cell population, decreased the gene
expression of stem cell marker and increased the expression of
apoptosis-related genes. These results indicate that Fentanyl, which is
used routinely in the pain palliation of pancreatic cancer, can be
considered as an option in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.... Show more Show less