Pujarini Dash
Institute of Life Sciences, India
Title: Expression of Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) in pancreatic cancer associated fibroblasts and its significance
Biography
Biography: Pujarini Dash
Abstract
Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a cytokine having multiple functions in different types of cancers including pancreatic cancer (PC). Induced expression of MIF in PC tissue and its high expression in PDAC-derived exosomes provide strong rationale to investigate its association with PC. Cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs), the major population of tumor microenvironment, are known to play crucial role in PC growth, progression and survival. The objectives of this study were to investigate the expression status of MIF and its receptors in CAFs and how their level of expression gets regulated in presence of inflammatory stimuli. To explore the secretome of human CAFs, a global proteomic profiling was carried out which showed that CAFs express MIF. To check the expression status of MIF and its receptors in CAFs in clinical scenario, CAFs were isolated from PC tissue of cancer patients through outgrowth method. Expression analysis of MIF and its receptors in CAFs (through qPCR, Western blot, immunofluorescence and FACS) and also in PC tissues in situ (through immunohistochemistry) show that CAFs express MIF. As inflammation is a contributing factor to MIF production and also has effect on PC, we further checked the expression of MIF and its receptors in CAFs following stimulation with LPS and TNF-a through qPCR, which showed that these inflammatory stimuli up-regulated the expression of both MIF and its receptors. Our ongoing work will shed light on the role of MIF in CAF’s pathophysiology, which may open up possibilities for targeted therapeutic strategies for PC.