Figure 2

Notch Receptors are Expressed in Pancreas Cancer Cell Lines, and Their Inhibition Is Inde-pendent of The Canonical Pathway. (A) As opposed to resected pancreas cancers, expression of all four NICDS or activated forms of the Notch receptors can be seen in the human pancreas cancer cell lines. Both BxPC-3 and Panc-1 cell lines also express Jagged1. (B) Murine pancreas cell lines, developed from mice overexpressing K-rasG12D and TGF-β knockout, express only Notch1 ICD and Notch3 ICD. There was no appreciable difference in Notch expression K162, K152, and K518. (C) Inhibition of Notch3 using the γ-secretase inhibitor MRK003 resulted in the loss of activated Notch3. (D, E) However, enhanced transcription of Notch-dependent genes HES1 and HEY1 determined with RT-PCR suggests that the effect of Notch inhibition on pancreas cancer cells is not through the Notch canonical pathway.