β-Catenin expression is associated with cell invasiveness in pancreatic cancer

BACKGROUND/AIMS: This study was tried to determine the role of β-catenin in invasion in pancreatic cancer. METHODS: We analyzed cancer invasiveness according to β-catenin expression in pancreatic cancer cell line. We also investigated the change in cancer invasiveness when β-catenin expression was changed. To enhance β-catenin activity, we treated low β-catenin cancer cell line, PANC1, with Wnt-3a conditioned media and transected β-catenin. We also treated high β-catenin expressing cell line, BxPC3, with XAV939, β-catenin inhibitor and siRNA for β-catenin to inhibit β-catenin expression. RESULTS: The high β-catenin expressing cancer cell line, BxPC3 showed higher invasiveness, and low β-catenin expressing cell lines, PANC1and MIA-PaCa-2, were less invasive. By adding the Wnt-3a conditioned media or performing transfection with β-catenin in PANC1, cell invasiveness was increased (p < 0.05 and p < 0.01, respectively). On inhibition of β-catenin by XAV939 and siRNA in BxPC3 cell line, invasiveness was significantly decreased (p < 0.01). It was not correlated with the expression of cluster of differentiation 44 (CD44) or CD44 variant 6 (CD44v6), the invasion related protein. On analysis of association with metastasis in human tissue, Wnt-3a expression was statistically correlated with the development of metastasis (p = 0.029). CONCLUSIONS: Based on our data, β-catenin may be involved in cancer invasion in pancreatic cancer, and it is not associated with CD44, the invasion related protein.