Trypsinogen expression by two human pancreatic cell lines CFPAC-1 and CAPAN-1. Modulation during spontaneous and induced cell growth.

We previously demonstrated that two human pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell lines, CFPAC-1 (established from a patient with cystic fibrosis) and CAPAN-1, were able to secrete trypsinogens 1 and 2 specifically. In order to analyze the relation of trypsin secretion to differentiation and cell growth, we undertook a comparative study of immunoreactive trypsin 1 (IRT) secretion by the two cell lines during cell growth in the presence and in the absence of various differentiating agents: sodium butyrate (NaBut), dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), and dexamethasone (DX). In the presence of NaBut, IRT levels in the supernatants of both cell lines were slightly increased, whereas the cellular growth of both cell lines decreased significantly. In the presence of DX, IRT levels in cell culture conditioned media immediately and dramatically decreased, but the cell growth of neither cell line was affected by DX. An important increase in IRT levels was observed when CFPAC-1 cells and CAPAN-1 cells were grown in the presence of DMSO, but for both cell lines the cellular growth decreased in the presence of DMSO. Our data show that neither the IRT secretion level nor the differentiation state of these cell lines correlates with cellular growth, and suggests that the expression of pancreatic proteases by these two tumor cell lines could be either related to a common stem cell with this potential or to a possible acinar origin of pancreatic cancer, as recently proposed by others.