Functional analysis of pancreatic cancer-specific antigen highly expressed throughout the disease stage

Research Project

Project/Area Number	24591007
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Section	一般
Research Field	Gastroenterology
Research Institution	The University of Tokyo
Principal Investigator	IJICHI Hideaki 東京大学, 医学部附属病院, 講師 (70463841)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	ISAYAMA Hiroyuki 東京大学, 医学部附属病院, 准教授 (70376458)
Project Period (FY)	2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2014)
Budget Amount *help	¥5,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,200,000) Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000) Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000) Fiscal Year 2012: ¥2,080,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥480,000)
Keywords	膵癌 / PSCA / ＰＳＣＡ
Outline of Final Research Achievements	Prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA) is highly expressed throughout the early and advanced stage of pancreatic cancer (PCa) development. This suggests that PSCA might be assciated with the essential mechanism of cancer initiation and progression. PSCA can also be useful for molecular targeting therapy and early diagnosis. Our genetically-engineered mouse PCa model (Kras activation and TGF-beta receptor II knockout) demonstrated significant upregulation of PSCA in the cancer cells compared to precancer cells. PSCA knockdown in human PCa cells dramatically inhibited cell proliferation with marked apoptosis, which suggested functional importance of PSCA. However, the relation of PSCA function and intracellular signalings including TGF-beta-SMAD pathway remained unclear. Detailed function of PSCA and the underlying mechanism should be further investigated.