Constitutive non-canonical NFκB signaling in pancreatic cancer cells

Constitutive classical NF kappa B activation has been implicated in the development of pancreatic cancer, and inhibition of classical NF kappa B signaling sensitizes pancreatic cancer cells to apoptosis. However, the role of the more recently described non-canonical NF kappa B pathway has not been specifically addressed in pancreatic cancer. The non-canonical pathway requires stabilization of NIK and IKK alpha-dependent phosphorylation and processing of NF kappa B2/p100 to p52. This leads to the activation of p52-RelB heterodimers that regulate genes encoding lymphoid-specific chemokines and cytokines. We performed qRT-PCR to detect gene expression in a panel of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cell lines (BxPC-3, PCA-2, PANC-1, Capan-1, Hs-766T, AsPC-1, MiaPACA-2) and found only modest elevation of classical NF kappa B-dependent genes. In contrast, each of the tumor cell lines displayed dramatically elevated levels of subsets of the non-canonical NF kappa B target genes CCL19, CCL21, CXCL12, CXCL13 and BAFF. Consistent with activation of the non-canonical pathway, p52 and RelB co-localized in adenocarcinoma cells in sections of pancreatic tumor tissue, and each of the tumor cell lines displayed elevated p52 levels. Furthermore, p52 and RelB co-immunoprecipitated from pancreatic cancer cells and immunoblotting revealed that NIK was stabilized and p100 was constitutively phosphorylated in a subset of the cell lines. Finally, stable overexpression of dominant negative IKK alpha significantly inhibited non-canonical target gene expression in BxPC-3 cells. These findings therefore demonstrate that the non-canonical NF kappa B pathway is constitutively active and functional in pancreatic cancer cells.